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2 years ago in Astrophysics By Vishwanath Panwar

What do CACTUS/isolsearch CME radial velocities represent?

What do the "radial velocity" outputs from CACTUS/isolsearch actually correspond to in terms of CME geometry and propagation?

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By Bhagirathi Bisht Answered 1 year ago

The radial velocities for Coronal Mass Ejections (CMEs) reported by the CACTUS tool on the isolsearch website typically represent the *linear speed* of the leading edge of the CME in the plane of the sky, as measured from coronagraph images. They are generally close to the maximum projected radial velocity in the early phase of the eruption. However, they are not necessarily the true radial speed along the Sun-Earth line, as they lack 3D reconstruction. For accurate earth-directed speeds, use data from stereoscopic missions like STEREO or advanced modeling techniques.

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