 |
| Titel |
Solar Wind Speed Charged Dust |
| VerfasserIn |
C. T. Russell, D. Weimer, L. K. Jian, J. G. Luhmann, N. Omidi |
| Konferenz |
EGU General Assembly 2009
|
| Medientyp |
Artikel
|
| Sprache |
Englisch
|
| Digitales Dokument |
PDF |
| Erschienen |
In: GRA - Volume 11 (2009) |
| Datensatznummer |
250021679
|
|
|
|
|
|
| Zusammenfassung |
| The correlation of the occurrence of magnetic disturbances, known as interplanetary field
enhancements (IFEs), with the asteroid 2201 Oljato can only be explained as the interaction
with charged dust in the asteroid’s orbit, because the events occurred both before and after
alignment with the asteroid. These single spacecraft observations did not determine how fast
the dust was accelerated, or if they were affected at all by the solar wind. Shortly after
STEREO A and B were launched, an IFE crossed the two spacecraft as well as ACE and
Wind. This four-spacecraft configuration allowed us to determine that the disturbance
was moving radially outward at 700 km/s, the solar wind speed. The conventional
wisdom is that only the smallest dust particles can be affected by the solar wind, but
examination of periods on STEREO when the spacecraft is being sprayed with multiple
beta-meteoroid strikes shows no obvious correlation. Further, the IFEs are much
less frequent than the “beta-meteoroid” impacts. Hence, it is possible that IFEs are
associated with much larger dust particles, perhaps 1 micron-sized dust. If true,
then those particles may be very dangerous albeit rare, possessing about 104 ergs. |
|
|
|
|
|
|