Sun  ID: 20179

STEREO Reveals the Anatomy of a Solar Storm in 3-D

Animations by Walt Feimer Released on April 14, 2009
Observations from NASA's twin Solar Terrestrial Relations Observatory (STEREO) spacecraft allowed scientists, for the first time, to reveal the true size and shape of solar explosions known as coronal mass ejections, or CMEs, in three dimensions.
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Conceptual animation and data visualization depicting the STEREO-A spacecraft viewing a coronal mass ejection leaving the sun between December 12-13, 2008.

The frames labeled Shot1NL, as well as the mpeg-1 and mpeg-2 files, have no labels.

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Hi-resolution still of STEREO A animation
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Conceptual animation and data visualization depicting the STEREO-B spacecraft viewing a coronal mass ejection leaving the sun between December 12-13, 2008. This is the same CME that was depicted in the previous animation.
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Conceptual animation and data visualization showing how the two views of the coronal mass ejection are used to create a 3-D model of its shape.
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Hi-Res still of wideshot animation
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Conceptual animation and data visualization depicting the shape of the December 12-13, 2008 coronal mass ejection at three points in its propagation.
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Image sequence from the COR2 telescopes on STEREO's SECCHI instrument suite showing a coronal mass ejection event on December 12-13, 2008. Data from both spacecraft are shown simultaneously.
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Visualization showing the December 12-13 coronal mass ejection as seen by the COR2 and HI1 telescopes of STEREO-A's SECCHI instrument suite. As the CME moves away from the Sun, it becomes more difficult to see using remote sensing instruments.
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Interview clips with Dr. Angelos Vourlidas, Project Scientist for STEREO's Sun Earth Connection Coronal and Heliospheric Investigation (SECCHI) instrument suite.
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Dr. Angelos Vourlidas, the Project Scientist for STEREO's Sun Earth Connection Coronal and Heliospheric Investivation (SECCHI) instrument, explains how the STEREO satellites have been able to observe the true size, shape, and three-dimensional structure of a coronal mass ejection for the first time.

For complete transcript, click here.

Animation Credits

Walt Feimer (HTSI): Lead Animator
Angelos Vourlidas (NRL): Narrator
Chris Smith (UMBC): Producer
Angelos Vourlidas (NRL): Scientist
Please give credit for this item to:
NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center/ Conceptual Image Lab

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https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/20179

Mission:
STEREO

Data Used:
STEREO
The STEREO mission consists of two Sun-observing spacecraft that will travel around the Sun on orbits slightly inside and slightly outside Earth's orbit.
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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:
Narrated Movies

Keywords:
SVS >> HDTV
SVS >> Edited Feature
DLESE >> Narrated
SVS >> STEREO
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