Using LASCO Observations to Infer Solar Wind Flow Near the Sun

Session 3 - SOHO Corona I.
Oral session, Friday, June 27
Ballroom A, Chair: Craig DeForest

[3.01] Using LASCO Observations to Infer Solar Wind Flow Near the Sun

N. R. Sheeley Jr, G. E. Brueckner, K. P. Dere, R. A. Howard, C. M. Korendyke, D. J. Michels, D. G. Socker (Naval Research Laboratory), M. J. Koomen (SFA Inc), S. E. Paswaters, D. Wang (Interferometrics Inc.), P. L. Lamy, A. Llebaria (Laboratorie d'Astronomie Spatiale, Marseille, France), R. Schwenn (Max-Planck Institute fur Aeronomie, Lindau, Germany), O. C. S. Cyr (Computational Physics, Inc.), G. M. Simnett, S. Plunkett, D. A. Biesecker (Department of Space Research, Birmingham, U.K.)

We have continued to track individual coronal features as they become detached from helmet streamers and move outward from the Sun. The composite speed profile for 50-100 features has a parabolic shape with a constant acceleration of about 4 m/s^2 over the 2-30 R field of view. This well-determined speed profile contrasts strongly with the nearly uniform scatterplot obtained for about 50 nominal coronal mass ejections (CMEs), and suggests that these detached bits of coronal ``debris'' are passively tracing the speed of the slow solar wind. We have also begun the more difficult task of tracking outflow along polar plumes and will summarize these results as of June 1997.

Program listing for Friday