Space Physics
This paper introduces a new analytical method for the determination of the coverage area modeling the Earth as an oblate ellipsoid of rotation. Starting from the knowledge of the satellite's position vector and the direction of the…
We study the relationship between solar wind helium to hydrogen abundance ratio ($A_\mathrm{He}$), solar wind speed ($v_\mathrm{SW}$), and sunspot number (SSN) over solar cycles 23 and 24. This is the first full 22-year Hale cycle measured…
Quantitative measurements of medium energy electron (MEE) precipitation ($>$40 keV) are a key to understand the total effect of particle precipitation on the atmosphere. The Medium Energy Proton and Electron Detector (MEPED) instrument on…
The integration of kinetic effects in fluid models is important for global simulations of the Earth's magnetosphere. We use a two-fluid ten moment model, which includes the pressure tensor and has been used to study reconnection, to study…
Magnetic reconnection processes in the near-Earth magnetotail can be highly 3-dimensional (3D) in geometry and dynamics, even though the magnetotail configuration itself is nearly two dimensional due to the symmetry in the dusk-dawn…
We perform and analyze global Particle-in-Cell (PIC) simulations of the interaction between solar wind and an outgassing comet with the goal of studying the plasma kinetic dynamics of a cometary environment. To achieve this, we design and…
For the first time, we identify the magnetospheric driver of STEVE, east-west aligned narrow emissions in the subauroral region. In the ionosphere, STEVE is associated with subauroral ion drift (SAID) features of high electron temperature…
It is currently believed that the turbulent fluctuations pervade the outermost heliosphere. Turbulence, magnetic reconnection, and their link may be responsible for magnetic energy conversion in these regions. The governing mechanisms of…
Whistler waves are intermittently present in the solar wind, while their origin and effects are not entirely understood. We present a statistical analysis of magnetic field fluctuations in the whistler frequency range (above 16 Hz) based on…
The understanding of inertial-scale dynamics in the heliosheath is not yet thorough. Magnetic field fluctuations across the inner heliosheath (IHS) and the local interstellar medium (LISM) are here considered to provide accurate and highly…
All known interstellar transportation methods encounter monumental technological or engineering roadblocks, or even rely on speculative unknown science. In particular light of the recent public excitement and ensuing disappointment…
The decay of the solar wind helium to hydrogen temperature ratio due to Coulomb thermalization can be used to measure how far from the Sun strong preferential ion heating occurs. Previous work has shown that a zone of preferential ion…
Context: The HELIOS solar observation probes provide unique data regarding their orbit and operation time. One of the onboard instruments, the Experiment 6 (E6), is capable of measuring ions from 4 to several hundred MeV/nuc. Aims: In this…
NASA's Parker Solar Probe (Parker) spacecraft reached its first perihelion of 35.7 solar radii on November 5th, 2018. To aid in mission planning, and in anticipation of the unprecedented measurements to be returned, in late October, we…
The Cluster mission, launched in 2000, has produced a large database of electron flux intensity measurements in the Earths magnetosphere by the Research with Adaptive Particle Imaging Detector (RAPID)/ Imaging Electron Spectrometer (IES)…
Two-line elements are widely used for space operations to predict the orbit with a moderate accuracy for 2-3 days. Local optimization methods, such as the nonlinear least squares method with differential corrections, can estimate a TLE as…
We provide a Wavelet analysis of Big Data in Solar Terrestrial Physics. In order to explain and predict the dynamics of the geomagnetic phenomena we analyze high frequency time series data from different sources: 1. The Interplanetary…
Since crossing the heliopause on August 25, 2012, Voyager 1 observed reductions in galactic cosmic ray count rates caused by a time-varying depletion of particles with pitch angles near 90-deg, while intensities of particles with other…
The most important parameter in the coupling between solar wind and geomagnetic activity is the $B_z$-component of the interplanetary magnetic field (IMF). However, recent studies have shown that IMF $B_y$ is an additional, independent…
We investigate the response of the outer Van Allen belt electrons to various types of solar wind and magnetospheric disturbances. We use electron phase space density (PSD) calculations as well as concurrent Pc5 and chorus wave activity…