CRADLE TO GRAVE TRACKING OF THE JANUARY 6-11, 1997 SUN-EARTH CONNECTION EVENT

During the interval January 6-11, 1997, the satellites and ground faci lities of the International Solar-Terrestrial Physics (ISTP) ''Observa tory'' tracked a solar eruption from the Sun to the Earth. The resulti ng Coronal Mass Ejection (CME) took four days to travel through interp lanetary space before arriving at Earth, where it caused electromagnet ic disturbances and spectacular aurorae. The initial expulsion lifted off the Sun on January 6, the resulting magnetic cloud arrived on Janu ary 10, and its effects lasted over 24 hours. The initial solar observ ations from SOHO were reported on January 7, during an ISTP Science Wo rkshop on Sun-Earth Connection events. This alerted the community to t he impending arrival of the CME thereby allowing the event to be monit ored in 'real-time' using the wide variety of ISTP instruments. This e vent provided the first ever end to end tracking of a space storm. Fur ther, it provided a strong pressure pulse of extremely high density re sulting in the compression of the magnetopause to within geosynchronou s orbit during northward IMF conditions. Here we present an overview o f the event and available observations.