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International Cometary Explorer Solar Wind Plasma Experiment Observations of Comet Giacobini-Zinner

Status: ARCHIVED

Abstract: These data were obtained from the LANL plasma experiment on ICE (Principal Investigator: S.J. Bame assistance from K. Sofaly and S. Kedge). The instrument measures the 2-D electron distribution function in one spacecraft rotation (3 s) once every 24 s, by obtaining 16 evenly spaced energy spectra, each with 15 contiguous levels covering the energy range 8.5 eV to 1140 eV. From these 2-D distributions the density, velocity, and temperature of the electrons are then derived. A 2-D temperature matrix is calculated which is subsequently diagonalized. Then nominally the maximum temperature corresponds to the parallel temperature and the minimum temperature corresponds to the perpendicular temperature. This is done independently of the magnetic field measurements however, the direction of maximum temperature determined in this manner is usually found to be within 15 degrees of the magnetic field direction inferred from the magnetometer measurements. The time resolution is 24 sec from the start of Day 253 (September 10) until Day 255 (September 12), 18:38. At that time the bit rate dropped from 1024 to 512 bps, and the nominal time resolution went to 48 sec.

ICE-C-SWPLAS-3-RDR-GIACOBIN-ZIN-V1.0 Browse Download (919.1 KB)

Citation to use when referencing this data set: "Bame, S.J., J.T. Gosling, K. Sofaly, S. Kedge, ICE SOLAR WIND PLASMA ELECTRON ANALYSER DATA V1.0, ICE-C-SWPLAS-3-RDR-GIACOBIN-ZIN-V1.0, NASA Planetary Data System, 1995."

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