Space Weather @ Mars: The CME of March 5, 2013

  • Released Wednesday, March 27, 2013
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These images were produced from a space weather model known as ENLIL named after the Sumerian storm god. It shows the way a coronal mass ejection (CME) on March 5, 2013, was expected to travel. The view on the left is top down, while the one on the right shows Earth from the side.

To protect their space assets from excessive radiation, NASA and other organizations research the fundamental processes behind space weather such as CMEs, integrating them into research models, which are run continuously at the Community-Coordinated Modeling Center (CCMC) at NASA Goddard.

When CMEs occur on the sun, models are generated with the best event information available at the time and propagated forward to estimate regions in the solar system that might be affected. The models take about an hour or two to run. The CMEs themselves usually take one or two days to reach other planets or spacecraft.

The March 5 CME moved towards Mars and the STEREO-B spacecraft (blue spacecraft icon). This allowed mission operators to take steps to protect STEREO-B as well as spacecraft operating around and on Mars.

This visualization shows the CME launching from the Sun, with Earth as the focus of interest in the top and side views. We see that the CME is not heading towards Earth.

This visualization shows the CME launching from the Sun, this time with Mars as the focus of interest in the top and side views. We see that the CME is heading towards Mars.

This color table represents how displaying each of the three variables as separate red, green, and blue color ramps combine to identify characteristics in the solar wind and CME.

This color table represents how displaying each of the three variables as separate red, green, and blue color ramps combine to identify characteristics in the solar wind and CME.

The mass density in atomic mass units (AMUs) per cubic centimeter. 1 AMU/cc corresponds to 1 hydrogen ion or atom per cc.

The mass density in atomic mass units (AMUs) per cubic centimeter. 1 AMU/cc corresponds to 1 hydrogen ion or atom per cc.

Plasma temperture scale, in Kelvin.

Plasma temperture scale, in Kelvin.

Credits

Please give credit for this item to:
NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center Scientific Visualization Studio, the Space Weather Research Center (SWRC) and the Community-Coordinated Modeling Center (CCMC), Enlil and Dusan Odstrcil (GMU).

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This page was originally published on Wednesday, March 27, 2013.
This page was last updated on Wednesday, May 3, 2023 at 1:52 PM EDT.

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