Search Publications

Influences of the interplanetary magnetic field clock angle and cone angle on the field-aligned currents in the magnetotail

Dunlop, M.; Liu, Z. X.; Shi, J. K. +1 more

The influences of the interplanetary magnetic field (IMF) cone angle θ and clock angle ϕ on the field-aligned currents (FACs) at the plasma sheet boundary layers (PSBLs) have been investigated using Cluster Data. The FAC occurrence increases monotonically with IMF cone angle and has two peaks at -90° and +110° clock angle, respectively. The peak a…

Correction to "Pc2 EMIC waves generated high off the equator in the dayside outer magnetosphere"

Dandouras, I.; Kistler, L. M.; Zhang, J. -C. +3 more

Interstellar He⁺ ring-beam distributions: Observations and implications

Galvin, Antoinette B.; Wimmer-Schweingruber, Robert F.; Berger, Lars +1 more

We report systematic measurements of the distribution of the incident angle of interstellar pickup He⁺ ions as observed by STEREO/Plasma and Supra-Thermal Ion Composition (PLASTIC). We have organized these observations according to the angle spanned by the Interplanetary Magnetic Field (IMF), B→, and the bulk solar wind velocity, vsw

Intensities of the Martian N₂ electron-impact excited dayglow emissions

Fox, Jane L.; Hać, Nicholas E. F.

The first N₂ emissions in the Martian dayglow were detected by the SPICAM UV spectrograph on board the Mars Express spacecraft. Intensities of the (0,5) and (0,6) Vegard-Kaplan bands were found to be about one third of those predicted more than 35 years ago. The Vegard-Kaplan band system arises from the transition from the lowest N_…

Probing IMF using nanodust measurements from inside Saturn's magnetosphere

Kempf, S.; Postberg, F.; Srama, R. +6 more

We present a new concept of monitoring the interplanetary magnetic field (IMF) by using in situ measurements of nanodust stream particles in Saturn's magnetosphere. We show that the nanodust detection pattern obtained inside the magnetosphere resembles those observed in interplanetary space and is associated with the solar wind compression regions…

Limb imaging of the Venus O₂ visible nightglow with the Venus Monitoring Camera

Hueso, R.; Witasse, O.; Opitz, A. +4 more

investigated the Venus O₂ visible nightglow with imagery from the Venus Monitoring Camera on Venus Express. Drawing from data collected between April 2007 and January 2011, we study the global distribution of this emission, discovered in the late 1970s by the Venera 9 and 10 missions. The inferred limb-viewing intensities are on the ord…

The solubility of ⁴⁰Ar and ⁸⁴Kr in liquid hydrocarbons: Implications for Titan's geological evolution

Sotin, Christophe; Choukroun, Mathieu; Hodyss, Robert +1 more

solubility of argon and krypton in methane and ethane has been experimentally determined at Titan-relevant temperatures. At typical Titan surface temperature (94 K), argon and krypton solubilities are very large (47% in methane and 15% in ethane for Ar, 29% in methane and 43% in ethane for Kr), making liquid alkanes on Titan an important potential…

Electromagnetic waves observed on a flight over a Venus electrical storm

Russell, C. T.; Zhang, T. L.; Daniels, J. T. M. +3 more

The occurrence of electrical discharges in planetary atmospheres produces high temperatures and pressures enabling chemical reactions that are not possible under local thermodynamic equilibrium conditions. On Earth, electrical discharges in clouds produce nitric oxide. Similar abundances of nitric oxide exist in the Venus atmosphere, but the exist…

Electric structure of dipolarization front at sub-proton scale

André, M.; Vaivads, A.; Huang, S. Y. +2 more

Using Cluster data, we investigate the electric structure of a dipolarization front (DF) - the ion inertial length (c/ω_pi) scale boundary in the Earth's magnetotail formed at the front edge of an earthward propagating flow with reconnected magnetic flux. We estimate the current density and the electron pressure gradient throughout the D…

Occurrence rate of earthward-propagating dipolarization fronts

André, M.; Vaivads, A.; Huang, S. Y. +2 more

The occurrence rate of earthward-propagating dipolarization fronts (DFs) is investigated in this paper based on the 9 years (2001-2009) of Cluster 1 data. For the first time, we select the DF events by fitting the characteristic increase in B_z using a hyperbolic tangent function. 303 earthward-propagating DFs are found; they have on ave…