Union Lecture (Hale Prize Lecture): Coronal Mass Ejections, the Most Powerful Drivers of the Sun-Earth System
Presiding: J A Klimchuk, Naval Research Laboratory; E E DeLuca, Smithonian Astrophysical Observatory
U15A-01 INVITED 17:20h
New Frontiers/Hale Prize Lecture: Coronal Mass Ejections, the Most Powerful Drivers of the Sun-Earth System
A large Coronal Mass Ejection (CME) can consist of billions of tonnes of matter, along with entangled magnetic field, erupting from the Sun at speeds well over 1,000 km/s. These giant disruptions of the solar atmosphere drive the most destructive space weather at Earth and throughout the solar system. Furthermore, CMEs are the most dramatic example of how slowly-evolving processes on the Sun can conspire to produce explosive activity. Understanding their origin has long been a central objective for space physics research. This talk will present some of the latest observations and theories for CMEs and discuss the outstanding challenges to modeling and predicting their initiation. This work was supported in part by NASA and ONR.
http://solartheory.nrl.navy.mil