Mars Express and Venus Express multi-point observations of geoeffective solar flare events in December 2006

In December 2006, a single active region produced a series of proton solar flares, with X-ray class up to the X9.0 level, starting on 5 December 2006 at 10:35 UT. A feature of this X9.0 flare is that associated MeV particles were observed at Venus and Mars by Venus Express (VEX) and Mars Express (ME...

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Published in:Planetary and space science 2008-05, Vol.56 (6), p.873-880
Main Authors: Futaana, Y., Barabash, S., Yamauchi, M., McKenna-Lawlor, S., Lundin, R., Luhmann, J.G., Brain, D., Carlsson, E., Sauvaud, J.-A., Winningham, J.D., Frahm, R.A., Wurz, P., Holmström, M., Gunell, H., Kallio, E., Baumjohann, W., Lammer, H., Sharber, J.R., Hsieh, K.C., Andersson, H., Grigoriev, A., Brinkfeldt, K., Nilsson, H., Asamura, K., Zhang, T.L., Coates, A.J., Linder, D.R., Kataria, D.O., Curtis, C.C., Sandel, B.R., Fedorov, A., Mazelle, C., Thocaven, J.-J., Grande, M., Koskinen, Hannu E.J., Sales, T., Schmidt, W., Riihela, P., Kozyra, J., Krupp, N., Woch, J., Fränz, M., Dubinin, E., Orsini, S., Cerulli-Irelli, R., Mura, A., Milillo, A., Maggi, M., Roelof, E., Brandt, P., Szego, K., Scherrer, J., Bochsler, P.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Fysik
Ion escape
Mars
SEP
Solar flare
Space weather
Venus
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Summary:In December 2006, a single active region produced a series of proton solar flares, with X-ray class up to the X9.0 level, starting on 5 December 2006 at 10:35 UT. A feature of this X9.0 flare is that associated MeV particles were observed at Venus and Mars by Venus Express (VEX) and Mars Express (MEX), which were ∼80° and ∼125° east of the flare site, respectively, in addition to the Earth, which was ∼79° west of the flare site. On December 5, 2006, the plasma instruments ASPERA-3 and ASPERA-4 on board MEX and VEX detected a large enhancement in their respective background count levels. This is a typical signature of solar energetic particle (SEP) events, i.e., intensive MeV particle fluxes. The timings of these enhancements were consistent with the estimated field-aligned travel time of particles associated with the X9.0 flare that followed the Parker spiral to reach Venus and Mars. Coronal mass ejection (CME) signatures that might be related to the proton flare were twice identified at Venus within
ISSN:0032-0633
1873-5088
1873-5088
DOI:10.1016/j.pss.2007.10.014