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Interstellar Neutral Helium in the Heliosphere from IBEX Observations. III. Mach Number of the Flow, Velocity Vector, and Temperature from the First Six Years of Measurements

Wurz, P.; McComas, D. J.; Fuselier, S. A. +10 more

We analyzed observations of interstellar neutral helium (ISN He) obtained from the Interstellar Boundary Explorer (IBEX) satellite during its first six years of operation. We used a refined version of the ISN He simulation model, presented in the companion paper by Sokół et al. (2015b), along with a sophisticated data correlation and uncertainty s…

Interstellar Flow and Temperature Determination with IBEX: Robustness and Sensitivity to Systematic Effects

Wurz, P.; McComas, D. J.; Fuselier, S. A. +11 more

The Interstellar Boundary Explorer (IBEX) samples the interstellar neutral (ISN) gas flow of several species every year from December through late March when the Earth moves into the incoming flow. The first quantitative analyses of these data resulted in a narrow tube in four-dimensional interstellar parameter space, which couples speed, flow lat…

Exploring the Possibility of O and Ne Contamination in Ulysses Observations of Interstellar Helium

Wood, Brian E.; Müller, Hans-Reinhard; Möbius, Eberhard +4 more

We explore the possibility that interstellar O and Ne may be contributing to the particle signal from the GAS instrument on Ulysses, which is generally assumed to be entirely He. Motivating this study is the recognition that an interstellar temperature higher than any previously estimated from Ulysses data could potentially resolve a discrepancy b…