Geophysics in the news - a solar coronal mass ejection

I happened to run into this geophysical story in the news today.

NASA's Solar Orbiter launched on February 10, 2020, and is currently in the cruise phase ahead of the main science mission, which begins in November of this year. This mission has already detected and tracked the evolution of a coronal mass ejection (CME) on February 12-13, 2021. CMEs are eruptions of particles from the solar atmosphere that blast out into the Solar System, and are responsible for space weather phenomena in the near-Earth environment. Understanding the sun and its relationship to the Earth was one of the major areas of study during the IGY.

CMEs, first identified as such in 1971, are often related to solar flares and prominences, such as shown on the U.S. IGY stamp (see the cover image below).

Here is a beautiful simulation of a CME interacting with the Earth's magnetosphere.

One of the most impressive solar storms in history was the 1859 Carrington event, since identified as a CME. This was almost 100 years before the IGY. The storm caused strong auroral displays and wrought havoc with telegraph systems. A solar storm of this magnitude occurring today would cause widespread electrical disruptions, blackouts, and extended outages of the electrical grid. So knowledge about extreme solar events has useful technological implications.

Currently we are just past the solar minimum between solar cycles 24 and 25. During solar minima, CMEs are less frequent, but still occur.

https://www.swpc.noaa.gov/products/solar-cycle-progression

I mentioned the International Year of the Quiet Sun (IQSY) in my post of Feb. 22. That year of scientific study around solar minimum complemented the solar research during the IGY and a solar maximum. 

My IGY philately colleague Bob Greenwald recently alerted me to the solar science Forever stamp series that will be issued this year.  If you click on and enlarge the image below, you'll notice the stamps showing coronal holes and coronal loops.

U.S. sun science Forever stamps to be issued in 2021

Below is a 1964 cover, produced by the Rocket Research Institute, from my collection (US 169, my index #). One stamp is the 3¢ 1958 IGY stamp. The other 5¢ 1963 stamp is US #1237, comemmorating the centennial of the founding of the National Academy of Sciences. The cover honors the 5th anniversary of the IGY, and the contemporaneous IQSY. The postage of 8¢ was the airmail rate from 1963-1968. The cachet includes logos for both the IGY and the IQSY. The insert is a graphic of John C. Fremont's encampment on Pyramid Lake (near Reno, the city where the stamp was postmarked), over which the rocket carrying this cover was flown.

IGY-IQSY cover (1964), front

IGY-IQSY cover, back

IGY-IQSY cover, insert

Elon Musk - rocket mail?