Maedot Tinsae Ayalew
7th Grade, Kenmore Middle School
Arlington, VA
Maedot has always wanted to see the Aurora Borealis, or northern lights. 鈥淒espite my many attempts, I haven鈥檛 seen the northern lights,鈥� she says. 鈥淭his led me to the next best thing, research.鈥� The Aurora Borealis is caused by coronal mass ejections (CMEs), clouds of plasma and magnetic fields spurting from the Sun鈥檚 corona. While they create a beautiful light show in places like Alaska, CMEs can also take out satellites and increase cancer risk for astronauts. Maedot decided to find out what time of year CMEs were at their strongest.
The Effects of Seasonal Variation on the Kinematics of Coronal Mass Ejections
Project Background
Maedot worked with a free database from the Large Angle and Spectrometric Coronagraph (LASCO) on the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO) spacecraft. This instrument has been collecting data from CMEs since 1996. Maedot looked at the CME data for each month from 2018-2022. For each CME in the database, she took three measurements and used a mathematical formula to determine the CME鈥檚 velocity and acceleration.
Maedot showed that the velocity of the CME鈥檚 was highest in the fall, and next highest in the spring, but the acceleration of the CME鈥檚 was highest in the spring, and next highest in the fall. The spring and fall are when the Earth and Sun鈥檚 magnetic fields are most closely aligned. 鈥淐MEs cause great damage to satellites,鈥� Maedot says. CME鈥檚 can also harm astronauts. 鈥淏y knowing what seasons have the greatest kinematics of CMEs, scientists can avoid those time periods.鈥�
Beyond the Project
鈥淪occer has improved many parts of my life,鈥� Maedot says. 鈥淚 have to think quickly and make decisions in the moment.鈥� She is also learning Amharic, the language her family spoke in Ethiopia. Maedot moved to the U.S. when she was three. 鈥淚鈥檓 still on my journey of relearning how to speak my native tongue, a part of me that I regret losing,鈥� she says. Maedot wants to be an astrophysicist. 鈥淭he universe has always held a sort of wonder to me.鈥�
