2004 SPACE SCIENCE VIDEOTAPES |
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Tape Title | Record ID | Date Produced | TRT: |
Synopsis |
| UNDERSTANDING THE SOLAR STORM OF THE CENTURY(AGU) | G04-027 | 5/19/04 | 7:32 | After a significant lull in activity, the Sun unleashed a series of storms for a two-week period from October 22 to November 4 2003, producing some of the most extreme events on record. The activity level was close to that of the maximum level of the current solar cycle, an 11-year period in which the Sun goes from stormy to quiet and back again. The solar storms had implications not for Earth, but for the solar system at large: even spacecraft located far beyond Earth's orbit, such as Ulysses and Cassini, felt the shocks from these eruptions. Scientists will discuss their findings at a press conference on Tuesday, May 19 at the 2004 Joint Assembly meeting, an international meeting of geophysical researchers.
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TAPE CONTENTS: |
| ITEM (1): What Is A CME? - Coronal mass ejections (CMEs) are violent discharges of electrically charged gas from the Sun's corona. The largest explosions in the solar system, CMEs launch up to 10 billion tons of ionized gas into space at speeds of one to two million miles an hour. CMEs can cause magnetic storms by interacting with the Earth's magnetic field, distorting its shape and accelerating electrically charged particles trapped within. As such, they can affect communication systems, power grids and astronauts in space.
Courtesy: NASA
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| ITEM (2): The One-Two Punch - It started with a view two unusually large sunspot groups; one was 13 times the surface of the Earth. On Oct. 28 spacecraft tracked an X-17.2 sized flare - the second largest ever observed by SOHO - and arrived early the next day, meaning it was unusually fast as well. That same day that one arrived, an X-10 flare set off another round of particles and another fast-moving CME. X-class flares are the largest classification with C-class as low, M-class as mid; X-6 is considered a large flare. [SOHO/MDI, EIT, LASCO; TRACE] Courtesy: NASA/ESA/LMSAL
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| ITEM (3): Mercury Transit Seen in Closeup (TRACE) - NASA's Transition Region and Coronal Explorer (TRACE) got a closer view of the Mercury Transit. TRACE orbits Earth at a height of about 600 km (373 miles). Like SOHO, TRACE's science goal for the transit event was to prove that cool material exists much further above the solar surface than theory predicts.
Courtesy: NASA/LMSAL
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| ITEM (4): The Record-Breaking Flare - Just as the giant sunspot rotated away, it blasted off one more enormous flare on Nov. 4. This one saturated spacecraft detectors and was classified as X28 making it the most powerful X-ray flare ever recorded. Only part of the associated CME (traveling at 2300 km/second) was directed toward Earth, resulting in few aurora. All told, three giant sunspots unleashed 11 X-class flares in only 14 days - equaling the total number observed during the previous 12 months. [SOHO/MDI, EIT, LASCO]
Courtesy: NASA/ESA/LMSAL
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| ITEM (5): Transit's Role in History (reporter pkg. from JPL) - In 1716, Edmond Halley realized that Venus Transits could provide the size of the solar system. If two observers at different points on Earth could follow the transit, the distance between the Sun and the Earth could be calculated by comparing the angular differences of Venus's path with the geographic distances between the observers. A sort of 'space race' emerged for the 1769 transit with various international expeditions including Captain Cook's to Tahiti. His led to the first approximate distance to the Sun and by extension, to the rest of the planets. The number was later refined to today's measurement of 93 million miles.Ê
Courtesy: NASA
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| ITEM (6): Polar Sees Aurora Arrival - Two weeks after the record-setters, the same spot hurled a CME into space resulting in massive aurora visible as far south as Florida Nov. 20. The Polar spacecraft was flying around the South Pole and saw this aurora australis (also known as the Southern Lights). Aurora form when solar particles and magnetic fields pump energy into the Earth's magnetic field, accelerating electrically charged particles trapped within. The high-speed particles crash into Earth's upper atmosphere (ionosphere) over the polar regions, causing the atmosphere to emit a ghostly, multicolored glow. [POLAR/VIS]
Courtesy: NASA/University of Iowa
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| ITEM (7): IMAGE Spacecraft Spots Glow - Also flying in the South Pole, the IMAGE spacecraft caught these views Nov. 20. This strong aurora australis reached above the island of Tasmania. Ultraviolet light is invisible to the human eye, but can be detected by special instruments like IMAGE. In this pressure pulse aurora, the aurora starts at the point over the Earth closest to the Sun, which is Noon local time. It then spreads out around the globe in opposite directions, towards the dawn and dusk regions. The two portions of the aurora finally meet on the opposite side of the planet, where it is midnight local time, forming a ring. [IMAGE/FUV]
Courtesy: NASA/UC Berkeley
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