Ace Images and Movies!

[michaelmozina]

http://www2.nict.go.jp/y/y223/simulation/realtime/home.html<br /><br />I recently came across some solar wind images from the ACE satellite program that I had personally never seen before, and that I found to be absolutely fascinating. I wanted to share them with others who may have missed them like me.<br /><br />The movies from the ACE website are particularly fascinating. Each of them is about 20-30 megabytes in size, but they are well worth the download time IMO. The movies (not the individual images) do require a codex plug in to view the avi movies, but you can find links to the codex on the Ace website. The individual images (which I had seen before) are fascinating by themselves, but the movies are absolutely amazing IMO.<br /><br />These solar wind/magnetosphere images show us the very dynamic interplay between the sun's solar wind particles and the magnetosphere of the Earth. I shows the energy transfer process in real time. I'm blown away at their level of detail. I'm sure other folks have seen these images and movies a long time ago since there are years worth of them online now, but I had never seen the dynamica movies until this week, and I'm addicted. <img src="/images/icons/smile.gif" /> Fascinating stuff IMO.<br /><br />The one thing that seems obvious to me from these images is that a great deal of induction currents form as a result of passing charged particles through a fixed magnetic field at the plasma boundary of the magnetosphere. Those induction currents tend to form in the leading edge (nose) of the magnetosphere and are directed through the Earth's magnetosphere and into the aurora. It's a more complicated process than I realized, particularly when I observed the dynamic dragging "jets" that flow out from the behind the Earth. <br /><br />I highly recommend the movies from this website! <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> It seems to be a natural consequence of our points of view to assume that the whole of space is filled with electrons and flying electric ions of all kinds. - Kristian Birkeland </div>

 

[billslugg]

Michael<br />Truly an amazing set of images. We need to remind folks that the level of detail is arbitrary, since these are computer simulations and not actual views. It is what ever the simulators chose for their element size. There is no way to know whether the details shown are real. There are only two places in each of those movies that we know to be correct. Those are the L1 point where the ACE probe is, and the boundary around the Earth. <br /><br />I looked through the flare data for 2007 here and the most active day (with 12 C class flares) was 7-10-07. I looked through some of the other active days (7-16-04, 1-15-05, 12-06-06) and none of them matched it. <br /><br />If you only download one, make it 7-10-07 <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p> </p><p> </p> </div>

 

[michaelmozina]

I think we have to be careful about assuming too much about the solar flare data and it's correspondence to the ACE solar wind data. As I understand it, these ACE measurements relate to data near and around the Earth. Flares however can be highly directional and tend to spew particle waves in fairly localized patterns than may never actually hit Earth. In other words, the Earth need not be in the line of fire during every solar flare. Likewise, it may be influenced by a local density hits that doesn't necessarily come from a large flare, just a highly directional one.<br /><br />I had never seen these MHD simulations before, but they seem to provide us with some very useful information related to solar wind speed and particle density flux changes in the solar wind. It's not altogether clear to me yet how these simulations achieve a 3D picture of the magnetosphere rather than a snapshot at the L1 point where ACE is located. I just ran into these images last week, and I don't profess to understand every detail about how they are made. They are however qutie fascinating in their detail and in the way in which information is visually presented. I have been most interested in the images from around the time of the Holmes flareup, because the Earth and the comet were in a "rough' alignment along the x,y axis, although they were on a somewhat different z plane. <br /><br />There does seem to be a large density spike on the evening of 10/22, and another much larger event that occurs on the 25th. I'm not certain that there is any sort of connection between the flareup and the density changes observed by ACE, but I find that information to be "of great interest" none the less.<br /><br />Anything that you might be able to pass along as it relates to how these images are created would be most welcome Bill. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> It seems to be a natural consequence of our points of view to assume that the whole of space is filled with electrons and flying electric ions of all kinds. - Kristian Birkeland </div>

 

[billslugg]

You are correct. It would be better to find historical data on disturbances to Earth's magnetic field. I tried looking for Auroral outburst data but was unsuccessful. <br /><br />I looked at the same data site but at the planetary A index. This is a daily average of the disturbance to the Earth's magnetic field. The highest number in 2007 is a 46 on May 23. By contrast July 10 was only a 6.<br /><br />I downloaded May 23, 2007 ACE simulation and it looks similar to the July 10 movie. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p> </p><p> </p> </div>