Extended Data Fig. 2: Schematic of the September 5, 2022 CME.

The dimensions are not to scale and have been exaggerated to visualize the extent of the CME, current sheet and PSP orbit plane in the context of the CME source region. Even though the source region (shown with the red-blue pair of filled circles) is in the southern hemisphere, the CME is wide enough that PSP crosses its associated current sheet. The light blue triangle shows the part of the current sheet lying above the plane along the vector radial to the source region, whereas the magenta region is below that plane. The black arrow at the top of the sphere and the solid black curve near the center represent the solar north pole and equator, respectively. The gray shaded region bound by a dashed line shows PSP’s orbit plane. Note that in the real scenario, the active region is more complex (Fig. 3b), and the flare loops arcade shows inclined orientation as shown in Fig. 2. For simplicity, here we only show a portion of the complicated arcade system, which should not be confused with the loops orientation seen in EUI images. Further, the flux rope structure has traveled well out into interplanetary space.