Project Description: Quasi-Thermal Noise (QTN) spectroscopy is a well-established method for measuring plasma density and temperature in space plasmas. Wind mission is known as a prime example of the spacecraft and antenna setup that is highly favorable for QTN spectroscopy. However, high sensitivity of the instrument - required for measuring very low QTN signals - also enables detection of various phenomena characteristic for solar wind and Earth's bow-shoch and, combined with a unique spacecraft trajectory, made it very difficult to understand the bow-shock crossings from solar wind to the magnetosheath. UA has processed 20 years of Wind Thermal Noise Receiver (TNR) instrument data, creating a unique database of 130M processed observations. This project proposes to create a database of Wind bow-shock crossings with 4s time resolution electron data. The current dataset is available of public and NASA repositories, and the follow-up database will become a standardized mission data product.
NASA Relevance: Addition of this high-level dataset, which relies only on the interpretation of previous levels' data, to the Wind Waves instrument repository will be a notable enhancement of already very rich mission output. It is worth emphasizing that this Level 4 dataset is not part of the original mission's data delivery obligation, even though is the most scientifically relevant product to be obtained from QTN data.
Work Description: Although Wind is a mission that is primarily made for operating in the quiet solar wind, it spent 10 years orbiting the Earth before moving to L1 point. During this period, the spacecraft made 133 passes through the Earth's magnetosheath and bow-shock, providing a rich collection of raw data from these passes. However, since the instruments are not optimized to operate in the conditions encountered during these passes, the current data for the given intervals is either low-resolution or missing. Our dataset provides a clear mapping of plasma parameters with respect to spacecraft position. Creating a comprehensive list of accurate times when Wind passes the bow-shock, as well as plasma properties before and after these events can be directly used to enhance output of multiple previous and current missions with orbits that also make routine passes, such as Magnetospheric Multiscale (MMS) and HelioSwarm, and to validate different theoretical models that describe the bow-shock behavior.
Open or Reserved Project: Open, 2 positions