Space Weather Event: A View from the Orbit Plane

We start with a view of the space between the Sun (left) and the Earth (within the small rectangular box on the right), slightly above the ecliptic plane. In the plane of the Earth's orbit, we show a 'slice' of the particle density profile of the solar wind (white to yellow for decreasing particle density). Perpendicular to this, we have another 'slice' of particle density from the Enlil model. The Enlil model extends to 60 degrees above and below the solar equator, and beyond 20 solar radii from the Sun. This gap creates the 'hourglass' empty region around the Sun.

The CME (orange surface) erupts in the direction of the Earth. The orange surface represents a boundary of common pressure differences, which better identifies sharp transitions in pressure common in shocks fronts. The CME clears out particles in the region behind it, called a rarefaction (Wikipedia), visible in the particle density.

This visualization is part of a series of visualizations on space weather modeling.