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What is going on with the solar wind?


No pseudoscience
Go to solution Solved by Sam Warfel,

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20 minutes ago, No pseudoscience said:

I just looked at the status of the solar wind and my literal reaction was "HOLY COW!" .

What is  going on?

The Earth has entered a slow-moving (~450 km/s, not that high above normal) but very dense and strongly magnetized stream of solar wind. The density spiked to 60, as you probably saw, which is very high. With the BT and BZ also being pretty strong, we have reached KP4 so far. It’s unlikely to reach geomagnetic storm levels however, it’s just a solar wind stream, and not a high-speed one either. Currently, there’s not much chance for Auroras due to the strongly northward BZ, but if this turns southward for long enough we could see some decent high-altitude Auroral displays. It’s mentioned at the top of the page here right now. https://spaceweather.com

Edited by Orneno
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30 minutes ago, Orneno said:

The Earth has entered a slow-moving (~450 km/s, not that high above normal) but very dense and strongly magnetized stream of solar wind. The density spiked to 60, as you probably saw, which is very high. With the BT and BZ also being pretty strong, we have reached KP4 so far. It’s unlikely to reach geomagnetic storm levels however, it’s just a solar wind stream, and not a high-speed one either. Currently, there’s not much chance for Auroras due to the strongly northward BZ, but if this turns southward for long enough we could see some decent high-altitude Auroral displays. It’s mentioned at the top of the page here right now. https://spaceweather.com

I doubt it but do you think we would reach KP5? 

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1 hour ago, Orneno said:

Although, it has turned into a solar wind HSS, reaching 600+ km/s, so it's not done yet!

Sometimes it's like trying to explain why the stock market goes up or down.  I'll buy 100 shares of "negative polarity CH HSS from a southern polar coronal hole extension."

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