Earth Sun ID: 3742

Space Weather Event: A View from the Orbit Plane

Visualizations by Tom Bridgman Released on July 8, 2010

We start with a view of the space between the Sun (left) and the Earth (within the small rectangular box on the right), slightly above the ecliptic plane. In the plane of the Earth's orbit, we show a 'slice' of the particle density profile of the solar wind (white to yellow for decreasing particle density). Perpendicular to this, we have another 'slice' of particle density from the Enlil model. The Enlil model extends to 60 degrees above and below the solar equator, and beyond 20 solar radii from the Sun. This gap creates the 'hourglass' empty region around the Sun.

The CME (orange surface) erupts in the direction of the Earth. The orange surface represents a boundary of common pressure differences, which better identifies sharp transitions in pressure common in shocks fronts. The CME clears out particles in the region behind it, called a rarefaction (Wikipedia), visible in the particle density.

This visualization is part of a series of visualizations on space weather modeling.

Visualization Credits

Tom Bridgman (Global Science and Technology, Inc.): Lead Animator
Greg Shirah (NASA/GSFC): Animator
Scott Wiessinger (UMBC): Producer
Michael Hesse (NASA/GSFC): Scientist

Please give credit for this item to:
NASA's Scientific Visualization Studio, the Space Weather Research Center (SWRC), the Community-Coordinated Modeling Center (CCMC) and the Space Weather Modeling Framework (SWMF), Enlil and Dusan Odstrcil (GMU).

Short URL to share this page:
https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/3742

Data Used:

Enlil Heliospheric Model also referred to as: Enlil Heliospheric Model

Model - Community Coordinated Modeling Center (CCMC) - 2006/1211T02:24:42 -2006/12/15T23:55:02

MHD solar wind simulation

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Note: While we identify the data sets used in these visualizations, we do not store any further details nor the data sets themselves on our site.

This item is part of this series:
Space Weather Modeling

Keywords:
SVS >> Computer Model
SVS >> HDTV
GCMD >> Earth Science >> Sun-earth Interactions
GCMD >> Earth Science >> Sun-earth Interactions >> Solar Activity
SVS >> Space Weather
NASA Science >> Earth
NASA Science >> Sun
GCMD >> Earth Science >> Sun-earth Interactions >> Solar Activity >> Coronal Mass Ejections

GCMD keywords can be found on the Internet with the following citation: Olsen, L.M., G. Major, K. Shein, J. Scialdone, S. Ritz, T. Stevens, M. Morahan, A. Aleman, R. Vogel, S. Leicester, H. Weir, M. Meaux, S. Grebas, C.Solomon, M. Holland, T. Northcutt, R. A. Restrepo, R. Bilodeau, 2013. NASA/Global Change Master Directory (GCMD) Earth Science Keywords. Version 8.0.0.0.0