From Spaceweather.com :
Active sunspot 1401 erupted yesterday, Jan. 19th around 16:30 UT, producing an M3-class solar flare and a full-halo coronal mass ejection (CME). The Solar and Heliospheric Observatory recorded the cloud expanding almost directly toward Earth:
Analysts at the Goddard Space Weather Lab say strong geomagnetic storms are possible when the cloud arrives this weekend. Their animated forecast track predicts an impact on Jan. 21st at 22:30 UT (+/- 7 hrs). Aurora alerts: text, voice.
The cloud is also heading for Mars, due to hit the Red Planet on Jan. 24th. NASA’s Curiosity rover, en route to Mars now, is equipped to study solar storms and might be able to detect a change in the energetic particle environment when the CME passes by.
More on WUWT’s solar reference page here
Discover more from Watts Up With That?
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
Tweaking something from Pink Floyd’s early days:
(Sol, in a heavily distorted monster voice)”One of these days I’m going to blast you into little pieces!”
What is a coronal mass ejection (CME)?
An ejection of plasma, which are ionionzed elements, in the Sun’s case, mostly ionized Hydrogen, thus, single protons and electrons, flowing out from the Sun, in an organized structure, something like a twisted “croissant” per NASA press release.
Likely, there are regions within the CME with different properties: Concentrations of ions and electrons, as well, as slightly different temperatures. In plasmas, regions of difference can lead to the formation of Electric Double Layers and, thus, electric fields.
Ionized elements in motion cause a magnetic field, and, indeed, CME’s move at a rapid rate and have a magnetic field. Harder to observe & measure, would be an electric field associated with the CME. It is important to observe & measure all observable phenomenon associated with the CME event.
As this is classified as a *mass* ejection, I wonder if anyone has a measure of the total mass that would be striking the Earth? How might that compare with the estimated total mass striking the Earth during the infamous Carrington Event?
Carla says: January 23, 2012 at 5:50 am
WOW, lots of IMF flopping around there, JTF.
Remarkable amount of dayside reconnection particle injection..in movie.
Here’s the vid from 22nd – 24th, lot’s to digest in there:
But take a look at the model example which is dated for Jan 23 2012 at this page.
http://www.expi.com/index.html The site is still under construction, but if you zoom the model image on this page, you will see a closed loop in the IMF .. VUKs..
This site has some good stuff:
http://iswa.ccmc.gsfc.nasa.gov:8080/IswaSystemWebApp/
also check out this loop from last year:
http://iswa.gsfc.nasa.gov/downloads/20110802_102100_anim.tim-den.gif
I’m a little freaked..
And we have some freezing rain today..eeeek
Nothing to worry about, just light the fireplace and snuggle up on the couch. 🙂