HR: 1340h
AN: SM53A-0401    [Abstracts]
TI: Identification and Visualization of Magnetic Conjunctions for Multi-Altitude Cusp Studies
AU: * Keith, W
EM: wayne.keith@gsfc.nasa.gov
AF: NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, Code 692, Greenbelt, MD 20771 United States
AU: Goldstein, M
EM: Melvyn.l.Goldstein@nasa.gov
AF: NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, Code 692, Greenbelt, MD 20771 United States
AU: Stubbs, T
EM: Timothy.J.Stubbs@gsfc.nasa.gov
AF: NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, Code 690.4, Greenbelt, MD 20771 United States
AU: Winningham, J D
EM: dwinningham@swri.edu
AF: Southwest Research Institute, PO Drawer 28510, San Antonio, TX 78228 United States
AU: Fazakerley, A
EM: anf@mssl.ucl.ac.uk
AF: Mullard Space Science Lab, Holmbury St Mary Dorking, Surrey, RH5 6NT United Kingdom
AU: RŠme, H
EM: reme@cesr.fr
AF: CESR, BP4346 31028 Toulouse Cedex 4, Toulouse, 31028 France
AB: Multi-satellite studies of the magnetosphere often require that the missions be on similar magnetic field lines and/or in the same magnetospheric region. An automated process has been developed to locate such conjunctions and plot the results for inspection. New visualization tools such as SDDAS/Orbit, ViSBARD, and OVT can then be used to further study the data. These techniques are being utilized to study the cusp at low- and mid-altitudes with the DMSP and Cluster missions. The comparison of particle spectrograms from different altitudes in the cusp is important to our understanding of magnetospheric entry processes. The magnetospheric cusps act as conduits through which shocked solar wind plasma can penetrate to low altitudes. Although this plasma entry persists under all magnetospheric conditions, it is a very dynamic and complex process, strongly affected by external solar wind conditions. Low altitude measurements detect a smaller cusp that is crossed relatively quickly, while at mid altitudes the extent of the cusp is larger and the traversals much slower, blurring the distinction between temporal and spatial features and complicating conjunction studies with low altitude data. Orbit and particle data from both missions have been searched over an eight-month period for near-simultaneous cusp region crossings. This technique has found a total of 14 good quality conjunctions, two of which will be shown, making use of the visualization tools mentioned above. These conjunctions show similar complex structures that may lead to a greater understanding of particle entry in the cusp.
DE: 2724 Magnetopause, cusp, and boundary layers
DE: 2794 Instruments and techniques
SC: SPA-Magnetospheric Physics [SM]
MN: 2004 AGU Fall Meeting