{ "id": 10821, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/10821/", "page_type": "Produced Video", "title": "Sun's Weather Encompasses Earth", "description": "The sun regularly spews forth bursts of particles and magnetic fields known as a coronal mass ejection, or, CME. A CME starts small in solar terms—just a few hundred times the size of the Earth—but it grows and changes as it travels toward the edges of the solar system. Scientists have been observing these events with satellites for decades, but tracking the details of an ejection's growth from original seed to complex structure near Earth has been more challenging. In fact, scientists recently used three NASA spacecraft—STEREO-A, WIND and ACE—to create the first visual record of a CME's path from the sun to the Earth. The orbiting instruments captured the CME's birth on Dec. 12, 2008 at the sun's surface, its exponential growth and its ultimate engulfing of the Earth about three days later. These ejections are common but large solar events can alter our magnetic atmosphere to such a degree that communications signals from GPS or telecom satellites are temporarily degraded beyond recognition. This visualization allowed scientists to watch how features early in the CME ultimately create the form seen closer to Earth, with a bright leading edge and trailing evacuated cavity. || ", "release_date": "2011-09-13T00:00:00-04:00", "update_date": "2023-05-03T13:53:37.827310-04:00", "main_image": { "id": 483527, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/vis/a010000/a010800/a010821/heliosphere_cover_1024x576.jpg", "filename": "heliosphere_cover_1024x576.jpg", "media_type": "Image", "alt_text": "Watch what scientists have just recorded for the first time: explosive space weather from start to finish.", "width": 1024, "height": 576, "pixels": 589824 }, "main_video": null, "main_credits": { "Visualizations by": [ { "name": "Walt Feimer", "employer": "HTSI" } ], "Scientific consulting by": [ { "name": "Craig DeForest", "employer": "SwRI" }, { "name": "David Webb", "employer": "Boston College" }, { "name": "Alysha Reinard", "employer": "NOAA" } ], "Written by": [ { "name": "Karen Fox", "employer": "ADNET Systems, Inc." } ] }, "progress": "Complete", "media_groups": [ { "id": 351287, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/10821/#media_group_351287", "widget": "Basic text with HTML", "title": "", "caption": "", "description": "The sun regularly spews forth bursts of particles and magnetic fields known as a coronal mass ejection, or, CME. A CME starts small in solar terms—just a few hundred times the size of the Earth—but it grows and changes as it travels toward the edges of the solar system. Scientists have been observing these events with satellites for decades, but tracking the details of an ejection's growth from original seed to complex structure near Earth has been more challenging. In fact, scientists recently used three NASA spacecraft—STEREO-A, WIND and ACE—to create the first visual record of a CME's path from the sun to the Earth. The orbiting instruments captured the CME's birth on Dec. 12, 2008 at the sun's surface, its exponential growth and its ultimate engulfing of the Earth about three days later. These ejections are common but large solar events can alter our magnetic atmosphere to such a degree that communications signals from GPS or telecom satellites are temporarily degraded beyond recognition. 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"https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/vis/a010000/a010800/a010821/heliosphere_cover_1024x576_thm.png", "filename": "heliosphere_cover_1024x576_thm.png", "media_type": "Image", "alt_text": "Watch what scientists have just recorded for the first time: explosive space weather from start to finish.", "width": 80, "height": 40, "pixels": 3200 } } ], "extra_data": {} }, { "id": 351289, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/10821/#media_group_351289", "widget": "Video player", "title": "", "caption": "", "description": "The CME was ten billion times fainter than the moon, but cutting-edge processing techniques sharpened the image's visibility.", "items": [ { "id": 328148, "type": "media", "extra_data": null, "title": null, "caption": null, "instance": { "id": 483530, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/vis/a010000/a010800/a010821/STEREOintegration_1024x576.jpg", "filename": "STEREOintegration_1024x576.jpg", "media_type": "Image", "alt_text": "The CME was ten billion times fainter than the moon, but 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"description": "With views from the side of the sun, the STEREO spacecraft can visually track an Earth-directed CME more easily than from head on.", "items": [ { "id": 328156, "type": "media", "extra_data": null, "title": null, "caption": null, "instance": { "id": 483538, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/vis/a010000/a010800/a010821/STEREOCMEc0885_1024x576.jpg", "filename": "STEREOCMEc0885_1024x576.jpg", "media_type": "Image", "alt_text": "With views from the side of the sun, the STEREO spacecraft can visually track an Earth-directed CME more easily than from head on.", "width": 1024, "height": 576, "pixels": 589824 } }, { "id": 328157, "type": "media", "extra_data": null, "title": null, "caption": null, "instance": { "id": 483539, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/vis/a010000/a010800/a010821/STEREOCMEc0885_1024x576_web.png", "filename": "STEREOCMEc0885_1024x576_web.png", "media_type": "Image", "alt_text": "With views from the side of the sun, the STEREO spacecraft can visually track 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Now the Heliospheric Imagers aboard the STEREO-A spacecraft has managed to view a CME propagate from the surface of the Sun to the Earth.This visualization shows the position of the STEREO spacecraft during the event, as well as the positions of the inner solar system planets, Venus and Mercury. A faint cone illustrates the field-of-view (FOV) of the HI-2 imager on STEREO-A. The position of the front of the CME is computed from STEREO data. || ", "release_date": "2011-08-18T14:00:00-04:00", "update_date": "2025-01-02T13:27:44.223610-05:00", "main_image": { "id": 484034, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/vis/a000000/a003800/a003847/STEREOCMEc.0885_ipad_poster_frame.jpg", "filename": "STEREOCMEc.0885_ipad_poster_frame.jpg", "media_type": "Image", "alt_text": "This movie conceptually illustrates the launch of the CME from the Sun and its propagation to the Earth.", "width": 1024, "height": 576, "pixels": 589824 } }, { "id": 10809, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/10809/", "page_type": "Produced Video", "title": "NASA Spacecraft Track Solar Storms From Sun To Earth", "description": "NASA's STEREO spacecraft and new data processing techniques have succeeded in tracking space weather events from their origin in the Sun's ultrahot corona to impact with the Earth 93 million miles away, resolving a 40-year mystery about the structure of the structures that cause space weather: how the structures that impact the Earth relate to the corresponding structures in the solar corona.Despite many instruments that monitor the Sun and a fleet of near-earth probes, the connection between near-Earth disturbances and their counterparts on the Sun has been obscure, because CMEs and the solar wind evolve and change during the 93,000,000 mile journey from the Sun to the Earth.STEREO includes \"heliospheric imager\" cameras that monitor the sky at large angles from the Sun, but the starfield and galaxy are 1,000 times brighter than the faint rays of sunlight reflected by free-floating electron clouds inside CMEs and the solar wind; this has made direct imaging of these important structures difficult or impossible, and limited understanding of the connection between space storms and the coronal structures that cause them.Newly released imagery reveals absolute brightness of detailed features in a large geoeffective CME in late 2008, connecting the original magnetized structure in the Sun's corona to the intricate anatomy of an interplanetary storm as it impacted the Earth three days later. At the time the data were collected, in late 2008, STEREO-A was nearly 45 degrees ahead of the Earth in its orbit, affording a very clear view of the Earth-Sun line.For the press conference Visual 1, a visualization of the STEREO orbits and the 2008 CME, go here.For Visual 7, a CME and reconnection animation, go here.For Visual 8, footage of the October 2003 solar storms, go here. || ", "release_date": "2011-08-18T13:00:00-04:00", "update_date": "2025-01-06T01:15:33.192602-05:00", "main_image": { "id": 484335, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/vis/a010000/a010800/a010809/Main_Science_Still_2.jpg", "filename": "Main_Science_Still_2.jpg", "media_type": "Image", "alt_text": "Short, narrated video about the new ability to track space weather from the sun to the Earth.For complete transcript, click here.", "width": 1280, "height": 720, "pixels": 921600 } } ], "sources": [], "products": [], "newer_versions": [], "older_versions": [], "alternate_versions": [] }