The Plasma and Suprathermal Ion Composition (PLASTIC) investigation provides the in situ solar wind and low energy heliospheric ion measurements for the NASA Solar Terrestrial Relations Observatory Mission, which consists of two spacecraft (STEREO-A, STEREO-B). PLASTIC-A and PLASTIC-B are identical. Each PLASTIC is a timeof-flight/energy mass spectrometer designed to determine the elemental composition, ionic charge states, and bulk flow parameters of major solar wind ions in the mass range from hydrogen to iron. PLASTIC has nearly complete angular coverage in the ecliptic plane and an energy range from ∼0.3 to 80 keV/e, from which the distribution functions of suprathermal ions, including those ions created in pick-up and local shock acceleration processes, are also provided.

A key goal for space weather studies is to define severe and extreme conditions that might plausibly afflict human technology. On 23 July 2012, solar active region 1520 (~141°W heliographic longitude) gave rise to a powerful coronal mass ejection (CME) with an initial speed that was determined to be 2500 ± 500 km/s. The eruption was directed away from Earth toward 125°W longitude. STEREO‐A sensors detected the CME arrival only about 19 h later and made in situ measurements of the solar wind and interplanetary magnetic field. In this paper, we address the question of what would have happened if this powerful interplanetary event had been Earthward directed. Using a well‐proven geomagnetic storm forecast model, we find that the 23–24 July event would certainly have produced a geomagnetic storm that was comparable to the largest events of the twentieth century (Dst ~ −500 nT). Using plausible assumptions about seasonal and time‐of‐day orientation of the Earth's magnetic dipole, the most extreme modeled value of storm‐time disturbance would have been Dst = −1182 nT. This is considerably larger than estimates for the famous Carrington storm of 1859. This finding has far reaching implications because it demonstrates that extreme space weather conditions such as those during March of 1989 or September of 1859 can happen even during a modest solar activity cycle such as the one presently underway. We argue that this extreme event should immediately be employed by the space weather community to model severe space weather effects on technological systems such as the electric power grid.

Abstract. In this paper we study the occurrence rate and solar origin of interplanetary coronal mass ejections (ICMEs) using data from the two Solar TErrestrial RElation Observatory (STEREO) and the Wind spacecraft. We perform a statistical survey of ICMEs during the late declining phase of solar cycle 23. Observations by multiple, well-separated spacecraft show that even at the time of extremely weak solar activity a considerable number of ICMEs were present in the interplanetary medium. Soon after the beginning of the STEREO science mission in January 2007 the number of ICMEs declined to less than one ICME per month, but in late 2008 the ICME rate clearly increased at each spacecraft although no apparent increase in the number of coronal mass ejections (CMEs) occurred. We suggest that the near-ecliptic ICME rate can increase due to CMEs that have been guided towards the equator from their high-latitude source regions by the magnetic fields in the polar coronal holes. We consider two case studies to highlight the effects of the polar magnetic fields and CME deflection taking advantage of STEREO observations when the two spacecraft were in the quadrature configuration (i.e. separated by about 90 degrees). We study in detail the solar and interplanetary consequences of two CMEs that both originated from high-latitude source regions on 2 November 2008. The first CME was slow (radial speed 298 km/s) and associated with a huge polar crown prominence eruption. The CME was guided by polar coronal hole fields to the equator and it produced a clear flux rope ICME in the near-ecliptic solar wind. The second CME (radial speed 438 km/s) originated from an active region 11007 at latitude 35° N. This CME propagated clearly north of the first CME and no interplanetary consequences were identified. The two case studies suggest that slow and elongated CMEs have difficulties overcoming the straining effect of the overlying field and as a consequence they are guided by the polar coronal fields and cause in-situ effects close to the ecliptic plane. The 3-D propagation directions and CME widths obtained by using the forward modelling technique were consistent with the solar and in-situ observations.

The giant, superfast, interplanetary coronal mass ejection, detected by STEREO A on 2012 July 23, well away from Earth, appears to have reached 1 AU with an unusual set of leading bow waves resembling in some ways a subsonic interaction, possibly due to the high pressures present in the very energetic particles produced in this event. Eventually, a front of record high-speed flow reached STEREO. The unusual behavior of this event is illustrated using the magnetic field, plasma, and energetic ion observations obtained by STEREO. Had the Earth been at the location of STEREO, the large southward-oriented magnetic field component in the event, combined with its high speed, would have produced a record storm.

[1] Extreme space weather events are known to cause adverse impacts on critical modern day technological infrastructure such as high-voltage electric power transmission grids. On 23 July 2012, NASA's Solar Terrestrial Relations Observatory-Ahead (STEREO-A) spacecraft observed in situ an extremely fast coronal mass ejection (CME) that traveled 0.96 astronomical units ( 1 AU) in about 19 h. Here we use the Space Weather Modeling Framework (SWMF) to perform a simulation of this rare CME. We consider STEREO-A in situ observations to represent the upstream L1 solar wind boundary conditions. The goal of this study is to examine what would have happened if this Rare-type CME was Earth-bound. Global SWMF-generated ground geomagnetic field perturbations are used to compute the simulated induced geoelectric field at specific ground-based active INTERMAGNET magnetometer sites. Simulation results show that while modeled global SYM-H index, a high-resolution equivalent of the Dst index, was comparable to previously observed severe geomagnetic storms such as the Halloween 2003 storm, the 23 July CME would have produced some of the largest geomagnetically induced electric fields, making it very geoeffective. These results have important practical applications for risk management of electrical power grids.