Tracking Nonradial Motions and Azimuthal Expansions of Interplanetary CMEs with the Solar Mass Ejection Imager
- Space Vehicles Directorate, AFRL/RVBXS, 29 Randolph Rd, Hanscom AFB, MA (United States)
- Institute for Scientific Research, Boston College, Boston, MA (United States)
The trajectories of interplanetary CMEs (ICMEs) are modified by their interactions with solar wind streams. These interactions can result in non-radial deflections of ICME trajectories and changes to their rates of azimuthal expansion. The Solar Mass Ejection Imager (SMEI), launched earlier in 2003 January, has provided heliospheric images of several hundred ICMEs during the declining portion of solar cycle 23. We selected three SMEI ICMEs, each traversing a range of solar elongation angles epsilon>20 deg. , and measured the time changes of their leading-edge profiles plotted against position angle, PA. The parabolic fits to those profiles yielded the propagation directions of the ICMEs as well as their leading-edge curvatures and time profiles. The selected ICMEs were associated with LASCO CMEs, so we tracked the PA variations in their propagation over 1 to 3-day periods. We found good fits for two of the ICMEs, but one yielded generally poor fits.
- OSTI ID:
- 21371723
- Journal Information:
- AIP Conference Proceedings, Vol. 1216, Issue 1; Conference: 12. international solar wind conference, Saint-Malo (France), 21-26 Jun 2009; Other Information: DOI: 10.1063/1.3395889; (c) 2010 American Institute of Physics; ISSN 0094-243X
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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