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Twin NASA spacecraft have provided scientists with their first view of the speed, trajectory, and three-dimensional shape of powerful explosions from the sun known as coronal mass ejections, or CMEs. This new capability will dramatically enhance scientists' ability to predict if and how these solar tsunamis could affect Earth.
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Coronal mass ejections- explosions of the sun's atmosphere that propagate in space in the form of a cloud
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When directed toward our planet, these ejections can be breathtakingly beautiful and yet potentially cause damaging effects worldwide. The brightly colored phenomena known as auroras - more commonly called Northern or Southern Lights - are examples of Earth's upper atmosphere harmlessly being disturbed by a CME. However, ejections can produce a form of solar cosmic rays that can be hazardous to spacecraft, astronauts and technology on Earth.
Space weather produces disturbances in electromagnetic fields on Earth that can induce extreme currents in wires, disrupting power lines and causing wide-spread blackouts. These sun storms can interfere with communications between ground controllers and satellites and with airplane pilots flying near Earth's poles. Radio noise from the storm also can disrupt cell phone service. Space weather has been recognized as causing problems with new technology since the invention of the telegraph in the 19th century.
STEREO’s COR1 imager capturing a coronal mass ejection (CME) as it erupts from the sun and speeds toward Earth. Credit: Walt Feimer, NASA's Goddard Spaceflight Center
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NASA's twin Solar Terrestrial Relations Observatory, or STEREO, spacecraft are providing the unique scientific tool to study these ejections as never before. Launched in October 2006, STEREO's nearly identical observatories can make simultaneous observations of these ejections of plasma and magnetic energy that originate from the sun's outer atmosphere, or corona. The spacecraft are stationed at different vantage points. One leads Earth in its orbit around the sun, while the other trails the planet.
Using three-dimensional observations, solar physicists can examine a CME's structure, velocity, mass, and direction in the corona while tracking it through interplanetary space. These measurements can help determine when a CME will reach Earth and predict how much energy it will deliver to our magnetosphere, which is Earth's protective magnetic shield.
These ejections carry billions of tons of plasma into space at thousands of miles per hour. This plasma, which carries with it some of the magnetic field from the corona, can create a large, moving disturbance in space that produces a shock wave. The wave can accelerate some of the surrounding particles to high energies that can produce a form of solar cosmic rays. This process also can create disruptive space weather during and following the CME's interaction with Earth's magnetosphere and upper atmosphere.
STEREO is part of NASA's Solar Terrestrial Probes Program in NASA's Science Mission Directorate in Washington. The program seeks to understand the fundamental physical processes of the space environment from the sun to Earth and other planets.
Images courtesy of NASA.
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