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Individual Lab Exercise #3.C: Solar Flares and Coronal Mass Ejections

(This is a brand new lab I have devised, so please let me know if there are any serious glitches.)

Instructions: Place your answers in the appropriate location on this Word Document. When you are finished with the assignment, copy and paste this document (with your answers, obviously) into the appropriate individual Lab Journal on BBLearn (i.e., Stellar Zoo #).

In light of the recent and highly publicized solar activity, I have developed these exercises to allow you to investigate Solar Flares and Coronal Mass Ejections. These activities will make use of several resources provided by NASA and affiliated researchers.

In working through this exercise, the following “Frequently Asked Questions” page from NASA may prove useful to you: http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/sunearth/spaceweather/index.html

(If the destructive/disruptive nature of solar flares/ CMEs coupled with the absurd public fears of the world ending in 2012 concerns you, I suggest you view NASA’s explanation of why the Sun most certainly will not destroy Earth: http://www.nasa.gov/topics/earth/features/2012.html The following video is useful as well: http://www.nasa.gov/topics/earth/features/2012-superFlares.html )

Part 1 - Solar Observatories:

Before we look at the actual solar activity, you will need to further investigate the tools used to observe solar phenomena. Watch the “Heliophysics 101” video located at the NASA Heliophysics Division’s website: http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/sunearth/overview/index.html

Question: Briefly describe the advantages given by the 4 main NASA spacecraft used for solar observation (SDO, SOHO, & STEREO A/B):

Soho is providing scientists with a comprehensive study of the Sun, the nuclear powerhouse in the center of our solar system. Its twelve experiments, developed by scientists from Europe and the United States, are investigating the Sun from its core outwards - from the very inner workings of the star, to the solar wind which blows through the solar system. It will provide a better understanding of the Sun and its importance to life on Earth.

Soho has lunched to study Sun.  it is currently the main source of near-real time solar data for space weather prediction. Along with the GGS Wind and Advanced Composition Explorer (ACE), SOHO is one of three spacecraft currently in the vicinity of theEarth-Sun L1 point, a point of gravitational balance located approximately 0.99 astronomical unit (AU)s from the Sun and 0.01 AU from the Earth. In addition to its scientific contributions, SOHO is distinguished by being the first three-axis-stabilized spacecraft to use its reaction wheels as a kind of virtual gyroscope; the technique was adopted after an on-board emergency in 1998 that nearly resulted in the loss of the spacecraft.

Question: Why is it important to view the sun at many different wavelengths?

Question: What types of light are best at detecting solar flares? What is the physical source of this form of light?

Question: How do these spacecraft observe Coronal Mass Ejections?

Part 2 – Solar Flares & Coronal Mass Ejections

For this portion of the lab, you will examine real data from SDO, SOHO, & STEREO in your hunt for solar flares. There is a convenient tool funded by the ESA & NASA that you will be using for these purposes: http://helioviewer.org/

Helioviewer allows you to look at still images of the sun from numerous spacecraft and at numerous wavelengths of light. You will use this tool to look at specific events in many wavelengths of light and you will create a video of the recent solar activity.

· Open up the Helioviewer and familiarize yourself with the interface.

· The left-most menu allows you to select the date, time, and step increment for your observations. The “Images” section below the “Time” control allows you to select which spacecraft, instrument, detector, and observation wavelength (measurement) to use. By selecting the “[Add]” option, you can build a composite image made of many different views of the sun at that point in time.

· The center panel is the data visualizer and its operation is quite intuitive. If you have ever used Google Maps or similar programs, this interface should be quite familiar to you. You can navigate by using the zoom slider on the upper-left as well as dragging the sun around when you are zoomed in close. Notice the options in the upper-right corner (Link, Movie, Screenshot, Settings.) You will be using these to make videos of a powerful solar flares & CMEs.

Flare Exercise:

Find the X5.4 flare of March 6, 2012. That is, navigate to March 6, 2012 with the “Time” control panel. You will need to set the “Images” panel to use the data from the Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO), using the AIA instrument at a measurement value of 171.

View the video of this flare at the following link: http://www.nasa.gov/multimedia/videogallery/index.html?collection_id=15504&media_id=135006681

Step through time in 1-hour increments until you are at about 02:00 UTC. You will notice the X5.4 flare in the upper-left side of the sun from this view. Change the time-step to 1 minute increments and compose a movie of this event. (Basically you are replicating the video from the above link.)

In order to compose the movie, select “Movie” in the upper-right corner of the data viewer. Choose “Full Viewport” then select “6 hours” to begin the video rendering process. The Helioviewer will alert you with a pop-up notifier when the movie is ready to view.

After previewing your movie for any glitches, you will need to select the “Get a link to the movie” button on the bottom of the viewport. Copy and paste that link into this worksheet below.

Your link to March 6, 2012 X5.4 movie:

CME Exercise:

Now that you have some experience with Helioviewer, I want you to find a recent Coronal Mass Ejection (CME) and compile a movie of that event. For this movie I want the SDO imagery taken with AIA at a measurement of 304 (mostly like the last movie,) but I also want you to include the STEREO-B imagery of the solar corona. That is to say, click “[Add]” and select “STEREO-B” “SECCHI” ”COR2” ”white-light.”

You can pick any recent CME you wish, but make sure there is both SDO & STEREO-B imagery for the same event. The time & date stamp for each layer should be a bright green color, not red or orange.

The following link will prove useful in your efforts: http://helios.gsfc.nasa.gov/cme.html

Use the NASA Heliophysics website and/or Wikipedia to find when a CME occurred and make a movie of the event. These events are reasonably quick, so make sure your time-step value is set to 1 minute and you compile the movie over at least a 6 hour period. Follow the same procedures to make the movie and paste the movie’s link in the appropriate spot below. Here is a link to an example I found: http://helioviewer.org/?movieId=3CY55 . Notice the activity on the sun itself preceding the CME seen by STEREO-B.

Time & Date of your selected CME:

Link to your CME event movie:

Describe what occurs during this event in terms of what each of these spacecraft observed:

Current Solar Activity Exercise:

Next, I want you to look at the most recent series of solar flares and CMEs. Using the composite few from the previous exercise, make another movie of the SDO/STEREO-B imagery that spans most of a month. Following the same procedures as before, choose a 28 day period within the last two months to observe. Here’s a link to a similar video I compiled as an example: http://helioviewer.org/?movieId=RCY55

Paste the link to your movie in the appropriate spot below and give a description of what is happening over this extended time period.

Link to recent CME activity:

Description:

The previous movie shows a good picture of the recent CME activity, but now I want you to make a final video for this laboratory that focuses on flares. Using the same time range and time-step, make a movie of the recent flare activity as seen from SDO’s AIA instrument with a measurement value of 171. Paste the link below and give a description of what has happened over that 28 day period.

Link to recent flare activity movie:

Description: