Earth  Sun  ID: 781

Polar: PIXIE at T055798 on May 11, 1999 at 05:05

Visualizations by Greg Shirah Released on December 8, 1999
On May 11, 1999, the solar wind that blows constantly from the Sun virtually disappeared. Dropping to a small fraction of its normal density and to half its normal speed, the solar wind died down enough to allow physicists to observe particles flowing directly from the Sun's corona to Earth. This severe change in the solar wind also drastically changed the shape of Earth's magnetic field and produced a rare auroral display at Earth's North Pole.
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An x-ray image of the South Pole on May 11, 1999 taken by the PIXIE instrument on Polar, indicating enegetic electron fluxes striking the upper atmosphere

Visualization Credits

Greg Shirah (NASA/GSFC): Lead Animator
David Chenette (LMATC): Scientist
John B. Sigwarth (University of Iowa): Scientist
Mike Carlowicz (Wyle Information Systems): Scientist
Please give credit for this item to:
NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center Scientific Visualization Studio

Short URL to share this page:
https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/781

Mission:
Polar

Data Used:
Polar/PIXIE
1999/05/11
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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:
Polar Aurora

Goddard TV Tape:
G1999-103

Keywords:
SVS >> Electron Fluxes
DLESE >> Geophysics
DLESE >> Space science
SVS >> Upper Atmosphere
SVS >> X-ray
NASA Science >> Earth
NASA Science >> Sun