Thursday, July 28, 2011

Wednesday (Week 4) The Drag Factor

      The drag factor which allows for my math to account for the solar drag unfortunately can not account for the different drag speeds that can occur. The solar wind can be as slow as 300km/sec and as fast as 900km/sec this directly affects the solar drag. I tried using a speed of 600km/sec to try and split the difference but this left a 25% error in its wake (12.5% on each side). This meant that for a CME that could hit Mars my calculations for when it would arrive would be off by as much as a day to early or late. This will not work, I need to have a 5% error tops... The new plan is to use SOHO to determine when the solar storm hits it at L1 and then use the aurora's on Earth as a second point of reference thereby decreasing the percent error dramatically... All we need to do now is find something that keeps track of the auroras. Google here we come!!!

Matt, SC

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