As Seen by STEREO-B: The Carrington-Class CME of 2012

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  • 
    ID: 5136 Visualization

    STEREO-A Returns by Earth

    Aug. 22nd, 2023
    (updated Sept. 8th, 2023)

    The Solar Terrestrial Relations Observatory (STEREO) mission was launched on October 25, 2006, with the purpose of tracing the flow of energy and matter from the Sun to Earth. The STEREO mission began with two spacecraft: STEREO-A and STEREO-B. Each was launched into Sun-orbiting trajectories - STEREO-A moving ahead of Earth, and STEREO-B moving behind Earth (STEREO's Routes to Solar Orbits). In mid-August 2023, the still-operational STEREO-A (STEREO-B went offline in October 2014) will pass Earth for the first time since its launch 17 years ago. Like race cars driving different speeds around a circular track, STEREO-A is traveling slightly faster than Earth around the Sun. After launch, STEREO-A pulled ahead of Earth and extended its lead a little bit more with each orbit. Now, STEREO-A’s lead is so great that it is catching up to Earth from behind and is about to “lap” Earth, having completed 18 circuits around the Sun while Earth completed just 17. ||

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  • 
    ID: 11558 Produced Video

    NASA's Many Views of a Massive CME

    Sept. 24th, 2014
    (updated Aug. 25th, 2023)

    On July 23, 2012, a massive cloud of solar material erupted off the sun's right side, zooming out into space. It soon passed one of NASA's Solar Terrestrial Relations Observatory, or STEREO, spacecraft, which clocked the CME as traveling between 1,800 and 2,200 miles per second as it left the sun. This was the fastest CME ever observed by STEREO. Two other observatories – NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory and the joint European Space Agency/NASA Solar and Heliospheric Observatory — witnessed the eruption as well. The July 2012 CME didn't move toward Earth, but watching an unusually strong CME like this gives scientists an opportunity to observe how these events originate and travel through space. STEREO's unique viewpoint from the sides of the sun combined with the other two observatories watching from closer to Earth helped scientists create models of the entire July 2012 event. They learned that an earlier, smaller CME helped clear the path for the larger event, thus contributing to its unusual speed. Such data helps advance our understanding of what causes CMEs and improves modeling of similar CMEs that could be Earth-directed. ||

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  • 
    ID: 4167 Visualization

    The Big CME that Missed Earth

    July 23rd, 2014
    (updated Aug. 25th, 2023)

    July of 2012 witnessed the eruption of a very large and fast solar coronal mass ejection (CME) (see NASA STEREO Observes One of the Fastest CMEs On Record and Carrington-class CME Narrowly Misses Earth ). While not directed at Earth, it was sufficiently large that it could have seriously disrupted the global electrical infrastructure. The event did impact STEREO-A of NASA's heliophysics fleet which provided a host of measurements (see Sentinels of the Heliosphere).One of the conditions which contributed to the high speed of this event is that two smaller CMEs were launched a little earlier, and these events cleared out much of the solar wind material, leaving little to slow the outflow of the July 23 event (UTC).In the visualizations below, generated from the Enlil space weather model, green represents particle density, usually protons and other ions. In green, we see the Parker spiral moving out from the sun generated by the sun's current sheet (Wikipedia). Red represents particles at high temperatures and shows the CME is hotter than the usual solar wind flow. Large changes in density are represented in blue. These three colors sometimes combine to tell us more about the characteristics of the event (noted in the 3-color Venn diagram below).However, if this CME had struck Earth's magnetosphere, which has a much stronger magnetic field, the changing magnetic field would induce much larger voltages in systems with long electrical conductors, such as power lines that run over long distances. These significantly higher voltages can damage power transformers. ||

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  • 
    ID: 4172 Visualization

    As Seen by SDO: The Carrington-Class CME of 2012

    July 23rd, 2014
    (updated May 3rd, 2023)

    While SDO did not have a direct view of the region which launched the large coronal mass ejection (CME) of July 23, 2012, it still managed to catch a glimpse of the solar plasma as it launched into space. The eruption becomes visible at timestamp 02:14:24 UTC in the lower right side of the movies below. || A view of the July 23, 2012 CME from AIA in the 131 angstrom filter. || A view of the July 23, 2012 CME from AIA in the 171 angstrom filter. || A view of the July 23, 2012 CME from AIA in the 211 angstrom filter. ||

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  • 
    ID: 4177 Visualization

    As Seen by STEREO-A: The Carrington-Class CME of 2012

    July 23rd, 2014
    (updated Sept. 8th, 2023)

    STEREO-A, at a position along Earth's orbit where it has an unobstructed view of the far side of the Sun, could clearly observe possibly the most powerful coronal mass ejection (CME) of solar cyle 24 on July 23, 2012. The visualizations on this page cover the entire day.We see the flare erupt in the lower right quadrant of the solar disk from a large active region. The material is launched into space in a direction towards STEREO-A. This creates the ring-like 'halo' CME visible in the STEREO-A coronagraph, COR-2 (blue circular image).As the CME expands beyond the field of view of the COR-2 imager, the high energy particles reach STEREO-A, creating the snow-like noise in the image. The particles also strike the HI-2 imager (blue square) brightening the image.The HI-1 imager has had 'bloom removal' enabled and filled with contents of the immediately previous HI-1 image, which creates a linear artifact above and below bright stars and planets. ||

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