Multipoint remote and in situ observations of interplanetary coronal mass ejection structures during 2011 and associated geomagnetic storms

Abstract

We present multipoint remote and in situ observations of interplanetary coronal mass ejection (ICME) structures during the year 2011. The selected ICMEs arrived at Earth on 2011 March 11 and 2011 August 6, and led to geomagnetic storms. Around the launch of these CMEs from the Sun, the coronagraphs onboard STEREO-Aand-B and SOHO enabled the CMEs to be imaged from three longitudinally separated viewpoints. We attempt to identify the in situ plasma and magnetic parameters of the ICME structures at multiple locations, for example at both STEREO spacecraft and also at the ACE/Wind spacecraft near the first Sun–Earth Lagrangian point (L1), to investigate the global configuration, interplanetary propagation, arrival times and geomagnetic response of the ICMEs. The near-Earth identified ICMEs of March 11 and August 6 formed as a result of the interaction of two successive CMEs observed in the inner corona on March 7 (for the March 11 ICME) and on August 3–4 (for the August 6 ICME). Our study suggests that the structures associated with interacting CMEs, possibly as a result of deflection or large sizes, may reach to even larger longitudinally separated locations in the heliosphere. Our multipoint in situ analysis shows that the characteristics of the same shock, propagating in a pre-conditioned medium, may be different at different longitudinal locations in the heliosphere. Similarly, multiple cuts through the same ejecta/complex ejecta, formed as a result of CME–CME interaction, are found to have inhomogeneous properties. The study highlights the difficulties in connecting the local observations of an ICME from a single in situ spacecraft to its global structures.

A Survey of Coronal Mass Ejections Measured In Situ by Parker Solar Probe during 2018–2022

“…However, such multispacecraft encounters also depend on fortuitous radial and longitudinal lineups of space probes. Also, factors such as inclination (e.g., Kilpua et al 2009;Davies et al 2021b), longitudinal separation (e.g., Farrugia et al 2011;Kilpua et al 2011;Winslow et al 2015;Lugaz et al 2018;Mishra et al 2021;Pal et al 2023;Palmerio et al 2024), interactions with other structures (e.g., Möstl et al 2012;Prise et al 2015;Winslow et al 2016Winslow et al , 2021Lugaz et al 2022), and physical effects such as erosion, deformation, and distortion (e.g., Ruffenach et al 2012;Wang et al 2018;Palmerio et al 2021;Weiss et al 2021) can induce fundamental changes in ICME measurements from one spacecraft to another and limit the generality of the findings. Another intrinsic drawback of most of the previous statistical approaches has been examining ICME evolution with clusters of in situ measurements at certain locations rather than a more continuous coverage.…”

Tianwen-1 and MAVEN Observations of the Response of Mars to an Interplanetary Coronal Mass Ejection

“…Interplanetary coronal mass ejections (ICMEs), the interplanetary counterparts of CMEs, propagate through interplanetary space and drive severe space weather in planetary environments (Richardson & Cane 2012;Chi et al 2016Chi et al , 2021Zhang et al 2021b). ICMEs with largescale expulsions of plasma (Zhang et al 2021b), highly structured magnetic fields (Lepping & Wu 2007;Wu et al 2013;Lockwood et al 2016), and preceded by a fast-forward shock (Wang et al 2021a;Xu et al 2022) can significantly distort the Earth's magnetosphere (Lockwood et al 2016(Lockwood et al , 2019 and cause intense geomagnetic storms (Xue et al 2005;Zhang et al 2007;Shen et al 2017;Chi et al 2021;Mishra et al 2021;Owens et al 2021). Geomagnetic storms cause a series of disturbances in the Earth's thermosphere (Lockwood et al 2016), ionosphere (Younas et al 2020;Yu et al 2021), magnetosphere (Lockwood et al 2020), and thermosphere (Wang et al 2021b).…”