STEREO spacecraft and new data processing techniques have succeeded in tracking space weather events from their origin in the Sun’s ultra hot corona to impact with the Earth 93 million miles away, resolving a 40-year mystery about the structure of the structures that cause space weather: how the structures that impact the Earth relate to the corresponding structures in the solar corona.
Imagery taken by various instrument on board the Solar TErrestrial RElations Observatory (STEREO) Ahead spacecraft track the path of the December 2008 coronal mass ejection (CME) from the sun to the Earth.
The first panel shows the CME forming in the corona.
The second panel shows the CME’s path through the inner solar system.
The third panel shows the CME as it nears Earth.
The fourth panel shows the increase in the solar wind density as recorded by the Wind spacecraft at Lagrange point L1 as the CME impacts with Wind’s sensors.› Link to associated news item