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Okay, the source of the activity started
at the sun right here
This is region 1520,
you can see it's very large relative to the rest of the sun and actually it's
going to grow rotate to the right over the next five or six days and disappear
over the limb of the sun
So it all started right here.
The forecasters analyzed the energy that was involved in the eruption as it
left this region yesterday.
The next step in the process is actually look at the solar wind. Where is this
eruption propagating?
This this is a model output right here.
The pinwheel will at the bottom is actually
looking down on the sun in the middle in the earth is to the right hand side.
If you look closely, you can actually see the modeled coronal mass ejection
going out into a stream that that already exists in the solar wind, so it
isn't that it goes out into a vacuum.
There's something out there already that it's going to make its way through.
So this model shows
yes indeed, the trajectory is on a path to go by the Earth
and it gives the forecasters really a good idea as to when to expected it to
come by.
The next question though is, Okay so what?
It's going to come by Earth, what's it gonna do to the Earth's magnetic field?
Here's another model up here that shows the current state of the Earth's
magnetic field at least as far as the location and equatorward extent
of the auroral oval.
Right now you can see the oval, the green arc up at the top,
is pretty high latitude and it's not terribly intense, which indicates a
pretty quiet set of geomagnetic conditions.
Probably in a day or so, you'll see the whole structure move more equatorward
and intensify as the effects of the CME start to come into play.