395 research outputs found
Tracking Streamer Blobs Into the Heliosphere
In this paper, we use coronal and heliospheric images from the STEREO
spacecraft to track streamer blobs into the heliosphere and to observe them
being swept up and compressed by the fast wind from low-latitude coronal holes.
From an analysis of their elongation/time tracks, we discover a 'locus of
enhanced visibility' where neighboring blobs pass each other along the line of
sight and their corotating spiral is seen edge on. The detailed shape of this
locus accounts for a variety of east-west asymmetries and allows us to
recognize the spiral of blobs by its signatures in the STEREO images: In the
eastern view from STEREO-A, the leading edge of the spiral is visible as a
moving wavefront where foreground ejections overtake background ejections
against the sky and then fade. In the western view from STEREO-B, the leading
edge is only visible close to the Sun-spacecraft line where the radial path of
ejections nearly coincides with the line of sight. In this case, we can track
large-scale waves continuously back to the lower corona and see that they
originate as face-on blobs.Comment: 15 pages plus 11 figures; figure 6 shows the 'locus of enhanced
visibility', which we call 'the bean'. (accepted by ApJ 4/02/2010
A synoptic view of solar transient evolution in the inner heliosphere using the Heliospheric Imagers on STEREO
By exploiting data from the STEREO/heliospheric imagers (HI) we extend a well-established technique developed for coronal analysis by producing time-elongation plots that reveal the nature of solar transient activity over a far more extensive region of the heliosphere than previously possible from coronagraph images. Despite the simplicity of these plots, their power in demonstrating how the plethora of ascending coronal features observed near the Sun evolve as they move antisunward is obvious. The time-elongation profile of a transient tracked by HI can, moreover, be used to establish its angle out of the plane-of-the-sky; an illustration of such analysis reveals coronal mass ejection material that can be clearly observed propagating out to distances beyond 1AU. This work confirms the value of the time-elongation format in identifying/characterising transient activity in the inner heliosphere, whilst also validating the ability of HI to continuously monitor solar ejecta out to and beyond 1A
Solwind observations of coronal mass ejections during 1979-1985
Coronal observations have been processed for parts of each year during the interval 1979-1985. Around sunspot maximum, coronal mass ejections (CMEs) occurred at the rate of approximately 2 per day, and had a wide range of physical and morphological properties. During the recent years of relatively low sunspot number, CMEs occurred at the rate of only 0.2 per day, and were dominated by the class of so-called streamer blowout. These special CMEs maintained a nearly constant occurrence rate of roughly 0.1 per day during the entire interval
An intensity distribution of bright points observed on a CN spectroheliogram
Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/43717/1/11207_2004_Article_BF00155777.pd
Scattering Polarization in the Chromosphere
Scattering polarization from the photosphere observed close to the solar limb has recently become of interest to study turbulent magnetic fields, abundances, and radiative transfer effects. We extend these studies by measuring the scattering polarization off the limb, i.e. in the chromosphere. However, instrumental effects are much more pronounced and more complicated than those affecting on-disk measurements. In particular, scattered light from the telescope mirrors leads to a new type of instrumental polarization that we describe in detail. The differences between the linearly polarized spectra on the disk and off the limb are often very substantial. Here we show the profiles of HeI D(sub 3), the OI triplet at 777 nm, and the Nal D lines. The change in the latter is in reasonable agreement with the recent modeling efforts of atomic polarization in the lower level by Landi Degl'Innocenti (1998)
A comparison of mean density and microscale density fluctuations in a CME at 10 R ⊙
Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/94990/1/grl15395.pd
Associations between coronal mass ejections and interplanetary shocks
Nearly continuous complementary coronal observations and interplanetary plasma measurements for the years 1979-1982 are compared. It is shown that almost all low latitude high speed coronal mass ejections (CME's) were associated with shocks at HELIOS 1. Some suitably directed low speed CME's were clearly associated with shocks while others may have been associated with disturbed plasma (such as NCDE's) without shocks. A few opposite hemisphere CME's associated with great flares seem to be associated with shocks at HELIOS
Accuracy and Limitations of Fitting and Stereoscopic Methods to Determine the Direction of Coronal Mass Ejections from Heliospheric Imagers Observations
Using data from the Heliospheric Imagers (HIs) onboard STEREO, it is possible
to derive the direction of propagation of coronal mass ejections (CMEs) in
addition to their speed with a variety of methods. For CMEs observed by both
STEREO spacecraft, it is possible to derive their direction using simultaneous
observations from the twin spacecraft and also, using observations from only
one spacecraft with fitting methods. This makes it possible to test and compare
different analyses techniques. In this article, we propose a new fitting method
based on observations from one spacecraft, which we compare to the commonly
used fitting method of Sheeley et al. (1999). We also compare the results from
these two fitting methods with those from two stereoscopic methods, focusing on
12 CMEs observed simultaneously by the two STEREO spacecraft in 2008 and 2009.
We find evidence that the fitting method of Sheeley et al. (1999) can result in
significant errors in the determination of the CME direction when the CME
propagates outside of 60deg \pm 20 deg from the Sun-spacecraft line. We expect
our new fitting method to be better adapted to the analysis of halo or limb
CMEs with respect to the observing spacecraft. We also find some evidence that
direct triangulation in the HI fields-of-view should only be applied to CMEs
propagating approximatively towards Earth (\pm 20deg from the Sun-Earth line).
Last, we address one of the possible sources of errors of fitting methods: the
assumption of radial propagation. Using stereoscopic methods, we find that at
least seven of the 12 studied CMEs had an heliospheric deflection of less than
20deg as they propagated in the HI fields-of-view, which, we believe, validates
this approximation.Comment: 17 pages, 6 figures, 2 tables, accepted to Solar Physic
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