Investigating a Possible Earth to Sun Connection - Can the Earth Affect the Sun?

It is well known that solar activity such as coronal mass ejections and flares can affect the Earth. However, we are unaware of any work that would suggest the reverse connection, in which the Earth could possibly affect the Sun, similar to the manner in which Jovian moons produce aurora on Jupiter. It is common knowledge that the solar wind is supersonic, which would make it difficult for information to travel from the Earth to the Sun. Despite the predictions of MHD, it is possible for information to travel upstream in front of the Earth's bow shock, producing, for example, the Earth's ion and electron foreshock, which can be observed at L1 (1% of the distance to the Sun). If such an Earth-to-Sun causal relationship existed, it would most likely be through a magnetic connection along the Parker Spiral magnetic field line. We might expect more solar activity on the west limb of the sun as compared to the east limb when viewed from the Earth. In this study, we use the RHESSI solar flare and CACTus CME databases to search for a possible east-west asymmetry. We do this by statistically analyzing the location and magnitude/size of flares and CMEs and considering various database biases. We did not find significantly more activity on the west limb, but a statistically significant asymmetry of activity from north to south was found and will be investigated in future work.