The visualization of a scientific numerical model reveals a turbulent front generated by a solar wind interacting with Earth's magnetic field during a powerful solar storm. Large disturbances, including high velocity jets, can penetrate deep inside the Earth's magnetosphere and result in space weather effects such as loss of communications satellites and widespread blackouts.

Credit: Numerical simulation by Blue Waters user Homa Karimabadi, Mahidhar Tatineni and Vadim Roytershteyn, University of California, San Diego; data visualization by NCSA's AVL team

This image shows a tangle of magnetic fields rising from a sunspot region. The simulation of a coronal mass ejection was conducted by Yuhong Fan and the solar surface simulation was done by Matthias Rempel, both from NCAR. Their data was visualized by NCSA's AVL team.

Credit: Yuhong Fan, Matthias Rempel, NCAR; visualization by AVL

Robert Stein used results of global solar dynamo simulations to determine spatially and temporally evolving bottom boundary conditions for a magneto-convection simulation of the top 15 percent of the solar convection zone (a slab of the sun's surface 48,000 km wide and 20,000 km deep). Magnetic flux emergence in forming solar active regions is the driver of flares and coronal mass ejections that produce the dangerous storms in Earth's space weather. The simulation ran on Pleiades at NASA's Advanced Supercomputing Division. Pat Moran, a visualization expert at NASA Ames, processed the output of these simulations through an advanced algorithm to produce spatially consistent, visually meaningful field lines by selecting for lines that ultimately end up connecting with a particular active region on the sun's surface.

Credit: Robert Stein, Michigan State University