Remote Sensing of Inner Heliospheric Plasmas

Abstract

Solar disturbances produce major effects on the corona, the solar wind, the interplanetary medium, and the Earth along with its magnetosphere. We have developed new techniques for studying plasma disturbances in the inner heliosphere by remotely sensing them. These techniques use data from the HELIOS spacecraft zodiacal light photometers, the ISEE-3 spacecraft kilometer radio- wave experiment, and a variety of other spacecraft and ground-based instruments. New in this study is our use of interplanetary scintillation (IPS) data from the Cambridge, England radio telescope. The zodiacal-light photometers on board the two HELIOS spacecraft (data coverage from 1974 to 1986) provide the first good information about the heliospheric masses and shapes of propagating disturbances. Metric and kilometric type II and type III radiation caused by shock waves and fast moving electrons respectively are another way to remotely sense the structures which propagate outward from the Sun. The best kilometric radio-wave sensing of inner heliospheric plasma is available from the ISEE-3 spacecraft, and recently we have been able to use these data to obtain crude images of the Earth's magnetosphere. The investigations into the physics of the disturbances sensed by these techniques and the ability to forecast them are underway.... Helios photometer data, Type III radio bursts, ISEE-3, Kilometric data.

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Document Details

Document Type
Technical Report
Publication Date
Dec 15, 1992
Accession Number
ADA260337

Entities

People

  • B. V. Jackson

Organizations

  • University of California, San Diego

Tags

DTIC Thesaurus Topics

  • Coronal Mass Ejections
  • Earth Orbits
  • Geometric Forms
  • Observatories
  • Orbits
  • Physics
  • Physics Laboratories
  • Shape
  • Solar Activity
  • Solar Physics
  • Solar System
  • Spacecraft
  • Students
  • Sun
  • Three Dimensional
  • Two Dimensional
  • X Rays

Fields of Study

  • Physics

Readers

  • Atmospheric Remote Sensing.
  • Solar Physics

Technology Areas

  • Microelectronics
  • Space