STEREO DIRECT IMAGING OF A CORONAL MASS EJECTION-DRIVEN SHOCK TO 0.5 AU
- School of Physics, Trinity College Dublin, Dublin 2 (Ireland)
Fast coronal mass ejections (CMEs) generate standing or bow shocks as they propagate through the corona and solar wind. Although CME shocks have previously been detected indirectly via their emission at radio frequencies, direct imaging has remained elusive due to their low contrast at optical wavelengths. Here we report the first images of a CME-driven shock as it propagates through interplanetary space from 8 R{sub sun} to 120 R{sub sun} (0.5 AU), using observations from the STEREO Heliospheric Imager. The CME was measured to have a velocity of {approx}1000 km s{sup -1} and a Mach number of 4.1 {+-} 1.2, while the shock front standoff distance ({Delta}) was found to increase linearly to {approx}20 R{sub sun} at 0.5 AU. The normalized standoff distance ({Delta}/D{sub O} ) showed reasonable agreement with semi-empirical relations, where D{sub O} is the CME radius. However, when normalized using the radius of curvature, {Delta}/R{sub O} did not agree well with theory, implying that R{sub O} was underestimated by a factor of {approx}3-8. This is most likely due to the difficulty in estimating the larger radius of curvature along the CME axis from the observations, which provide only a cross-sectional view of the CME.
- OSTI ID:
- 21562535
- Journal Information:
- Astrophysical Journal Letters, Journal Name: Astrophysical Journal Letters Journal Issue: 1 Vol. 736; ISSN 2041-8205
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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