Speaker
Description
First Name: Eleni
Last Name: Nikou
Affiliation: NRC Research Associate, U.S. Naval Research Laboratory
All Authors: Eleni Nikou (NRC Research Associate, U.S. Naval Research Laboratory), Evangelos Paouris (The Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory), Robin Colaninno (U.S. Naval Research Laboratory), Phillip Hess (U.S. Naval Research Laboratory), Norberto Romanelli (Department of Astronomy, University of Maryland & Planetary Magnetospheres Laboratory, NASA Goddard Space Flight Center), Cecilia Mac Cormack (Heliophysics Science Division, NASA Goddard Space Flight Center & The Catholic University of America)
Abstract: Ongoing space exploration as well as upcoming human exploration missions have made it vital that reliable space weather predictions are required in multiple locations. Coronal mass ejections (CMEs) are one of the major drivers of space weather and successfully tracking their evolution will help accurately predict their time of arrival (ToA) not only at Earth, but also at Mars. Furthermore, fast CMEs can drive interplanetary shocks that also cause space weather disturbances at a range of longitudes larger than the source CME. This study focuses on tracking the shock driven by a CME that occurred on March 28, 2025 from the Sun to Mars using semi-automatic reconstructions obtained by a minimization based fitting tool that combines white light observations from coronagraphs and heliospheric imagers with various geometric models. The fitting results are used as input to a kinematic model to predict the ToA of the shock at Mars. The model assumes a two-phase kinematic behavior: an initial accelerating/decelerating phase from approximately 20 Rs to high distances, followed by a phase of constant propagation speed to Mars. The CME was observed by multiple instruments, including LASCO/C2 and C3, STEREO-A/HI1 and HI2, and SolO/SoloHI. We tracked the CME shock using every available viewpoint and leveraged the unique perspective and observing capabilities of SoloHI to further enhance our reconstruction results. We will present shock reconstructions from all available instruments, as well as the predicted ToA at Mars. Finally, we will discuss how data availability from different instruments affects the ToA prediction results.