15 minutes ago, hamateur 1953 said:

Should tag @Archmonoth on this for his input imho.

Definitely too deep for this kid but interesting nonetheless😊

Ha-ha) It's deep for me too, but I'm a kid too, just a big one. I'm thinking of taking a break, too much information I've gotten, a full chill is needed before my head bursts.

I have a really stupid question -

during the May 10/11th event last year, I caught ISS flying through the view of Auroras, which seem to explode in color and brightness right behind the ISS.

My question is - was that just a lucky coincidence, or could ISS cause enough disturbance to "activate/ stir up" the Auroras in a big enough event?

You can see it in my timelapse at 1:26 (13 frames past 1:26), but you need to advance frame by frame to catch the ISS because it zips through really fast. You can advance frame by frame with . (period) and you can go backwards frame by frame with , (comma).

I checked the ISS track vs. the time (by the position of the stars, especially Cassiopeia, under which the ISS flies) and location and it matches. It comes in the view on low left side between the pink and yellow/green, and passes just under Cassiopeia's Segin and Ruchbah, 3 and 4 frames before 1:27 mark.

The video is time stamped for 1:26, but you need to stop it and then advance / go back by frames because if you press play or period/comma, it'll just play at normal speed.

Anyway, that's my dumb question for the day...

24 minutes ago, NightSky said:

I have a really stupid question -

during the May 10/11th event last year, I caught ISS flying through the view of Auroras, which seem to explode in color and brightness right behind the ISS.

My question is - was that just a lucky coincidence, or could ISS cause enough disturbance to "activate/ stir up" the Auroras in a big enough event?

You can see it in my timelapse at 1:26 (13 frames past 1:26), but you need to advance frame by frame to catch the ISS because it zips through really fast. You can advance frame by frame with . (period) and you can go backwards frame by frame with , (comma).

I checked the ISS track vs. the time (by the position of the stars, especially Cassiopeia, under which the ISS flies) and location and it matches. It comes in the view on low left side between the pink and yellow/green, and passes just under Cassiopeia's Segin and Ruchbah, 3 and 4 frames before 1:27 mark.

The video is time stamped for 1:26, but you need to stop it and then advance / go back by frames because if you press play or period/comma, it'll just play at normal speed.

Anyway, that's my dumb question for the day...

The pink/red pillars should reach up to maybe 400/500 km. ISS seems to pass in the middle of them, while flying at around 450 km, which means, it was far behind them. I believe then, that is was just a coincidence. Big objects can definitely create plasma wakes, with quite a strong electric potential, but on much smaller scales. For auroras, the potential differences should cancel out in the large scales.

12 hours ago, Alphane said:

First image shows approximate position of milky way by constellation

Second image shows Jupiter and suns position with constellations today

Given that Jupiter is now directly opposite the milky way and has a 12 year orbit . Has it ever been proposed that the solar cycle of approx 11 years is related to Jupiter's position in comparison to the milky way ? as we are now apparently at about solar maximum .

Oh yes, but Jupiter is not in the same place at the beginning of the cycle. Solar cycles range from 9-12, so Jupiter isn't even the same distance. Also, during these times, the total angular momentum changes in the solar system.

The issue with prediction is this clockwork system is that it only resembles clockwork. For example, the Sun's Jose cycle is 179ish years. The dynamics involved seem to be immune to simple division of orbits.

Basically; the holistic view seems to indicate the cycles have outcome sensitives we don't understand yet.

Great question! Large system dynamics have lots of corners and pockets to explore.

Edited March 14Mar 14 by Archmonoth

Hi, first post but long time lurker here! I'm curious how a solar flare is mapped to a certain solar region? Meaning how do we know that a certain solar region was responsible for a specific solar flare? Here on SWL under solar activity there is a "Events on the Sun past 24 hours" which has this mapping. I'm working on a script to achieve the same thing, and is this some algorithm here on SWL that is responsible for that, or is there any datasource/api that provide the data already "mapped"? Looks hard to programmatically detect this, so I'm curious both how this is done, and also what sources I can use for my project. Thank you in advance!

@Samrau thanks for the link to that paper . Can't say I'm a good enough mathematician to understand it all interesting to see they appear to have found that the planets , not the milky way specifically , can be found to produce similar cycles as the solar max / min . Thanks for the reply .

@Archmonoth the fact jupiters orbit is slightly longer than the solar max cycle , did make me doubt the basic premise . Given also the fact the sun traverses the milky way at great speed and some angle it would appear the cycle when Jupiter is in the same position to the milky way would be longer not shorter in reality as it would need to make up the extra few degrees the curvature would create .

If it's true the planets and mass centre of the planets does affect the suns cycles then it's possible there is some factor involving our traversal and spin around the milky way and it's gravitational affect on the sun that influences these cycles . Though because of the orbital length factors it's likely it's not just as simple a relation as I might have first thought.

/Edit my mistake with planets orbiting counter clockwise and the milky way orbiting clockwise ( just checked hence this update , thought it was counterclockwise too ) the curve round the milky way would reduce the time slightly of Jupiter's repositioning at opposite the milky way. Making it slightly more likely the numbers could be related I think .

Edited March 14Mar 14 by Alphane

25 minutes ago, Alphane said:

@Archmonoth the fact jupiters orbit is slightly longer than the solar max cycle , did make me doubt the basic premise . Given also the fact the sun traverses the milky way at great speed and some angle it would appear the cycle when Jupiter is in the same position to the milky way would be longer not shorter in reality as it would need to make up the extra few degrees the curvature would create .

A few degrees could be millions/billions of kilometers.

Regardless the galactic center does come up as a possible source/influence. I have found that it is unlikely to be impactful due to something called the Inverse Square Law, which means that influence/flux from gravity or any force is proportionate to its distance. The proportion is so steep that whenever the distance doubles, the intensity/effect goes down by a factor of 4.

This means tons of massive and distant objects have no effect. Our Sun for example might be moving within a local group (nearby solar systems) at a speed opposite the galactic direction. Even local stars might have more effect than distant galactic objects/center.

It is easy to get lost in the cosmos of connections, but for the most part only local influences seems to have any intensity worth measuring. Here is another forum/convo where others have asked the same question: orbit - How strong is the force between the Sun and the centre of the Milky Way? - Astronomy Stack Exchange

Here is also a fun article about large systems analysis of Jupiter's influence. Quantifying the Influence of Jupiter on the Earth's Orbital Cycles - IOPscience

However, my favorite link is the relationship to momentum: 1706.01854.pdf

My guess is that Sunspots/CMEs/Flares is the turbulence from the changes in the barycenter. This turbulence could be generated from the tachocline being asymmetrical, and eventually (1-2 years as illustrated above) the momentum from the turbulence is conserved. Which is what we are seeing as solar activity. I don't have all the pieces yet to fully illustrate the dynamics... but I'm learning.

Edited March 14Mar 14 by Archmonoth

43 minutes ago, Alphane said:

@Samrau thanks for the link to that paper . Can't say I'm a good enough mathematician to understand it all interesting to see they appear to have found that the planets , not the milky way specifically , can be found to produce similar cycles as the solar max / min . Thanks for the reply .

@Archmonoth the fact jupiters orbit is slightly longer than the solar max cycle , did make me doubt the basic premise . Given also the fact the sun traverses the milky way at great speed and some angle it would appear the cycle when Jupiter is in the same position to the milky way would be longer not shorter in reality as it would need to make up the extra few degrees the curvature would create .

If it's true the planets and mass centre of the planets does affect the suns cycles then it's possible there is some factor involving our traversal and spin around the milky way and it's gravitational affect on the sun that influences these cycles . Though because of the orbital length factors it's likely it's not just as simple a relation as I might have first thought.

/Edit my mistake with planets orbiting counter clockwise and the milky way orbiting clockwise ( just checked hence this update , thought it was counterclockwise too ) the curve round the milky way would reduce the time slightly of Jupiter's repositioning at opposite the milky way. Making it slightly more likely the numbers could be related I think .

If the Milky Way, that is, the supermassive black hole at the center and all the stars in the galaxy, could somehow influence the Sun, then on the scale of the galaxy this influence would appear constant to our observation, so we can neglect it, I think. The planets mentioned above - yes, they are traveling faster in their orbits than distant stars.

It's more accurate to say it's faster for our observations

I mean that the impacts from the black hole and galactic stars do not create any significant internal friction in the core of the Sun because of its relative constancy.

1 hour ago, Archmonoth said:

A few degrees could be millions/billions of kilometers.

Regardless the galactic center does come up as a possible source/influence. I have found that it is unlikely to be impactful due to something called the Inverse Square Law, which means that influence/flux from gravity or any force is proportionate to its distance. The proportion is so steep that whenever the distance doubles, the intensity/effect goes down by a factor of 4.

This means tons of massive and distant objects have no effect. Our Sun for example might be moving within a local group (nearby solar systems) at a speed opposite the galactic direction. Even local stars might have more effect than distant galactic objects/center.

It is easy to get lost in the cosmos of connections, but for the most part only local influences seems to have any intensity worth measuring. Here is another forum/convo where others have asked the same question: orbit - How strong is the force between the Sun and the centre of the Milky Way? - Astronomy Stack Exchange

Here is also a fun article about large systems analysis of Jupiter's influence. Quantifying the Influence of Jupiter on the Earth's Orbital Cycles - IOPscience

However, my favorite link is the relationship to momentum: 1706.01854.pdf

My guess is that Sunspots/CMEs/Flares is the turbulence from the changes in the barycenter. This turbulence could be generated from the tachocline being asymmetrical, and eventually (1-2 years as illustrated above) the momentum from the turbulence is conserved. Which is what we are seeing as solar activity. I don't have all the pieces yet to fully illustrate the dynamics... but I'm learning.

That was what I was remembering from our discussion two years ago. Would be pretty strange if it were purely coincidental.

Definitely a tantalizing coincidence! 🤣

Thanks again both of you for your replies . Definitely learned more about the subject than I knew before .

/ Edit

Sorry for brief reply , Friday night last night 🍺.

So it seems the planets including Jupiter are involved in both the timed planet cycles mentioned and the barycentre explanation , given it relates to planetary positioning influencing the gravity centre of the solar system .

The milky way though seems potentially irrelevant given gravity laws and the distances involved .

Unless the sun's tilt could be attributed to milky way and galactic positioning somehow then in the conservation of energy theory the tilt is important and might relate to galactic position. I could be wrong someone may no more about why exactly the sun tilts.

A quick search just says that something passed close by and distorted the gravity plane and it never returned to normal.

If it is instead some function of galactic position then the milky way position would be a factor in the conservation of energy theory as it would have caused the tilt .

@Samrau @Archmonoth

Edited March 15Mar 15 by Alphane
More complete reply

19 hours ago, Alphane said:

If it is instead some function of galactic position then the milky way position would be a factor in the conservation of energy theory as it would have caused the tilt .

@Archmonoth

Perhaps, but the tilt would have to be periodic which I don't see. I do like the conservation idea, but the 9.5-11 years for a cycle suggests (to me) an internal or local mechanism which is unaffected by orbits. For example, the same orbits during solar min and max are present, but the solar activity is not. Why would the same orbits give different solar effects every 9.5-11 years?

This is why I think there is an internal conservation occurring. If you prepare coffee and stir, the barycenter will oscillate/dip, perhaps some mechanism equivalent is happening with the Sun and the conservation.

Another thing to note is that as far as angular momentum, both Saturn and Jupiter possess 90+% of the total momentum in the solar system. The theory (not me) is that the momentum is transferred via high energy protons and absorbed in the atmospheres, magnetic fields, etc. by the Jupiter/Saturn Systems. So, any CME/Flare/Parker Spiral activity is absorbed/conserved locally (asteroids, planets etc.)

I have more speculation about this, and if you want to talk more over DMessages here I would be open. (Since speculation is not answering a question.)

Edited March 15Mar 15 by Archmonoth

11 minutes ago, Archmonoth said:

Perhaps, but the tilt would have to be periodic which I don't see. I do like the conservation idea, but the 9.5-11 years for a cycle suggests (to me) an internal or local mechanism which is unaffected by orbits. For example, the same orbits during solar min and max are present, but the solar activity is not. Why would the same orbits give different solar effects every 9.5-11 years?

This is why I think there is an internal conservation occurring. If you prepare coffee and stir, the barycenter will oscillate/dip, perhaps some mechanism equivalent is happening with the Sun and the conservation.

Funny that's the reason I think there might be some external reference at work . The sun too active to be the cause as spins so fast relative orbit positions change so quickly. Relative position to some external factor to the solar system would mean that orbital positions would be a relavent relationship over these long time terms .

I'll do as you suggest regarding further theories and contact you by PM thanks .

On 3/14/2025 at 5:31 PM, Luukie said:

Hi, first post but long time lurker here! I'm curious how a solar flare is mapped to a certain solar region? Meaning how do we know that a certain solar region was responsible for a specific solar flare? Here on SWL under solar activity there is a "Events on the Sun past 24 hours" which has this mapping. I'm working on a script to achieve the same thing, and is this some algorithm here on SWL that is responsible for that, or is there any datasource/api that provide the data already "mapped"? Looks hard to programmatically detect this, so I'm curious both how this is done, and also what sources I can use for my project. Thank you in advance!

The NOAA SWPC provides a list with events and assigns a region if possible corresponding to the event. It is publicly available data.

https://www.lmsal.com/solarsoft/latest_events/

You may also use the above link which lists the most recent flares ( from the bottom up). Pretty reliable and corresponds well to the levels that are displayed here and historically too .

Edited March 15Mar 15 by hamateur 1953
Grammar.

1 hour ago, Marcel de Bont said:

The NOAA SWPC provides a list with events and assigns a region if possible corresponding to the event. It is publicly available data.

I must have missed that data from NOAA SWPC completely when browsing their "products", thanks for letting me know, appreciate it! :)

21 minutes ago, hamateur 1953 said:

https://www.lmsal.com/solarsoft/latest_events/

You may also use the above link which lists the most recent flares ( from the bottom up). Pretty reliable and corresponds well to the levels that are displayed here and historically too .

Thanks! Did now know about that site, will check it out 👍

On 3/15/2025 at 12:31 AM, Luukie said:

Hi, first post but long time lurker here! I'm curious how a solar flare is mapped to a certain solar region? Meaning how do we know that a certain solar region was responsible for a specific solar flare? Here on SWL under solar activity there is a "Events on the Sun past 24 hours" which has this mapping. I'm working on a script to achieve the same thing, and is this some algorithm here on SWL that is responsible for that, or is there any datasource/api that provide the data already "mapped"? Looks hard to programmatically detect this, so I'm curious both how this is done, and also what sources I can use for my project. Thank you in advance!

One of the ways is through GOES own instruments, as they use a quad diode to be able to discern the location of a flare. There's an "XRS Flare Location" product here (under the "Level 2 Data" collapsible) for both GOES-16 and GOES-18; it's a few days behind present, but works as a great source of data on past flare locations if that's what you're looking for.

That being said, for the more live mapping I'm assuming it's just taking it from SWPC's daily reports as Marcel suggests; I think that's just from the people at SWPC inspecting it visually, but not 100% sure.

I am unsure if that was discussed, but I am trying to understand the high/mid/low latitude convention. For example, in Norway Tromsø has the perfect placement for the nightside auroras and is fittingly called high-latitude. Oslo, though in this map seems above the line, is at 59 geomagnetic latitude, and it is already a mid-latitude. Now I wonder, how should one call "higher" latitudes? For example, Longyearbyen is far enough to the north, that a proper substorm (though global geomagnetic activity can be very low) is required to see auroras there. Moving even farther north it may require serious storms to see anything. Are those mid- and low-latitudes respectively? Are they high-latitudes nevertheless? Is there some other name for that (polar latitudes?)?

It is a rather small community it pertains to, but still, it feels weird to put in the same bag Tromsø, Narvik and Alta, where northern lights are every night, with Longyearbyen, where the nightside auroras could sometimes be almost non-existent for few weeks. (dayside auroras were almost every day though)

4 hours ago, MJOdorczuk said:

Are those mid- and low-latitudes respectively? Are they high-latitudes nevertheless? Is there some other name for that (polar latitudes?)?

The most common descriptor for those particular latitudes seems to be the "polar cap latitudes". See e.g. here, where they're juxtaposed with auroral latitudes:

A number of networks located at auroral and polar cap latitudes provide a good statistics of GNSS measurements acquired at 50 Hz frequency sampling.

Or here, where the title itself, The effect of fluctuating ionospheric electric fields on Es-occurrence at cusp and polar cap latitudes, makes the distinction between the latitudes around the cusp itself (the edge between the auroral zone and the polar cap) and the polar cap latitudes.

This one uses it several times, with reference to the special kind of polar cap aurora, known as a polar rain aurora, that on very rare occasions occurs when the solar wind becomes unusually quiet:

All-sky cameras (ASCs) located at the polar cap latitudes in Longyearbyen, Svalbard Island, Norway.

[...]

This incredibly smooth and gigantic form is distinctively different from that of a typical polar cap aurora; thus, it cannot be categorized as any previously identified class of aurorae visible at polar cap latitudes. One plausible candidate phenomenon is the polar rain aurora, which has never previously been observed from the ground.

[...]

If the latter hypothesis is correct, then the polar rain aurora simply projects patterns in the solar wind or on the solar surface as a screen; thus, ground-based ASCs at the polar cap latitudes could be used for 2D remote sensing of structures (e.g., supergranules, magnetic funnel bases, and magnetic network lanes) in the photosphere of the Sun, which is the origin of the internal structures of the solar wind.

[...]

This method was initially developed to track the motion of upper-atmospheric phenomena in the 630.0-nm airglow emission at polar cap latitudes, called polar cap patches.

Note how it specifically references Longyearbyen there too. Cool paper in general, and that event has been written extensively about; similar happened in May of 1999 as well.

There are other references to this term being used too. On the other hand, exceedingly uncommon, but also a decent candidate if you ask me, would be superauroral latitudes, so as to contrast it with the auroral and subauroral ones. This is the only published paper I could find that uses it (the other two mentions were respectively from a dissertation and from a series of questions posed to one Joseph W. Chamberlain, apparently a prominent space physicist and geophysicist), where they write:

Figure 6 demonstrates that the occurrence of Pc 1-2 at subauroral to superauroral latitudes has a similar maximum during the early afternoon hours.

There is another term that I could think of that might be used, which does indeed seem to have some use, viz. transauroral latitudes, which would carry with it the denotation of crossing beyond the auroral zone into something separate. However, the way it's used seems to mostly reference trans- in the sense of "across" rather than "beyond", and so is probably a poor fit. In Transauroral Ionosphere, Magnetospheric Implications from this it's used in that sense, defining it fairly explicitly:

Recent low energy particle measurements and photometric observations have shown that in a ring extending (for Kp ≲ 3) from ~78° to 85° IN Lat in the noon sector and ~72° to 80° in the midnight sector most of the corpuscular energy input is due to soft particles: by transauroral regions we shall refer to this ring-shaped zone. Its existence was disclosed a few years ago on the basis of ionospheric observations and it is clear that the behavior of the transauroral ionosphere is essentially dominated by magnetospheric processes and magnetosphere-ionosphere coupling.

[...]

Berthelier spoke about the transauroral ionosphere and its connections with the magnetosphere, and presented some detailed satellite data. The transauroral region is a belt extending about 8° poleward of low-latitude edge of the auroral oval; across this region there seems to be a change in the convection pattern, so it separates two completely different parts of the upper atmosphere as far as the motions ofthe plasma are concerned.

So that would be part of the auroral oval, i.e. specifically the ring-shaped region where we find aurora (which had only started to be seen from early satellites measurements around that time), and thus very much within what we think of as auroral latitudes.

Here and here are a couple of old technical reports where it's used as a category explicitly different from that of the high latitudes, for purposes of radio transmission by the looks of it. In this case it seems to mean "across" again, but this time in the sense of transmitting through the auroral latitudes, a sense in which it's used in some other references too.

Edited March 19Mar 19 by Philalethes
clarity, addendum, correction, typo

On average, what's the time between an EPAM impact and impact at L1?

Is there a forum for aurora images/videos? if not, i'd imagine you could probably either post in a storm forum page or the unspecified geomagnetic storm forum, but I was just curious if there was a forum specifically for sharing images of the aurora

Edited March 24Mar 24 by linkedwinters

52 minutes ago, linkedwinters said:

Is there a forum for aurora images/videos? if not, i'd imagine you could probably either post in a storm forum page or the unspecified geomagnetic storm forum, but I was just curious if there was a forum specifically for sharing images of the aurora

I haven’t looked at our gallery since the major software revision a bit ago, but discovered it can be accessed via the main menu and has a subcategory now for aurora and solar pictures @linkedwinters give it a shot. I have never posted a picture there myself however. If issues tag one of the admins. Mike

Edited March 24Mar 24 by hamateur 1953

Maybe someone asked the question once before. Right now there is something like a camera shutter on SDO images, the image closes one by one on each side. I have observed this before, what is it?

1 hour ago, Samrau said:

Maybe someone asked the question once before. Right now there is something like a camera shutter on SDO images, the image closes one by one on each side. I have observed this before, what is it?

This is corrective and calibration Manoeuvres by the satellite causing the sun to dart in and out of frame.

Edited April 9Apr 9 by Nico

What is the structure of a CME? are there differences between Filament-Eruption Associated CMEs and Flare-Associated CME's in structure and characteristics?

is determining the possible total Z component possible from HMIBC or other analysis?

2 hours ago, Nico said:

What is the structure of a CME? are there differences between Filament-Eruption Associated CMEs and Flare-Associated CME's in structure and characteristics?

is determining the possible total Z component possible from HMIBC or other analysis?

This has been something @arjemma has done well explaining in the past. I thought there was a thread about flux rope orientation but I couldn't find it. All CME's are technically the same if you looked at a model, one exception beining their flux rope. Their magnetic orientation can sometimes be predicted visually the moment they leave the sun but to the untrained eye it would be hard to accomplish. You wouldn't be able to determine the exact strength of any singular vector component until it passes through a sensor though.

Here's a picture roughly explainingflux rope orientation.