PICK OF THE WEEK
Pick of The Week
A Proton Storm Erupts (November 7, 2001)
| An X-class (scientific term for very strong) solar flare (not pictured) and a coronal mass ejection (CME) blasted off of the sun, on November 4, 2001, rocketing high-energy protons into the SOHO imager within minutes of the storm's onset. The first two images LASCO C3 instrument show the expanding CME and the particles appearing as white specks. The third image shows the storm just beginning to ease up over two days later. A comparison of the three largest particle events observed by the SOHO/CELIAS instrument shows that in terms of particles above 50 MeV, this one was the largest by half an order of magnitude. This storm caused brilliant aurora to appear over much of the Earth on Nov. 5 and 6 and was the most intense proton storm of the current solar cycle. The Sun, blocked by an occulting disk, is represented by the white circle. The breadth of view of the C3 instrument is 30 solar radii. |
