Plasma flows in the heliosheath
Abstract
Voyager 2 is making the first plasma measurements in the heliosheath. The radial flow speeds in the heliosheath vary between 80 and 200 km/s with an average speed of 138 km/s. The flow in the T (azimuthal) direction is fairly constant and averages about 48 km/s; the flow direction is consistent with flow away from the heliospheric nose. Flow in the N (meridional) direction is also away from the nose and averages −14 km/s. These flows suggest that the shock is blunter in the T than in the N direction, so that the heliosphere is wider than it is high. The flow in the RN plane has quasi-periodic oscillation with a period of 110 days and an amplitude of 21 km/s. The oscillation in flow angle is about 6° in the RN plane and 17° in the TN plane and may result from periodic variations of the termination shock normal direction.
Additional Information
© 2009 American Geophysical Union. Received 30 March 2009; accepted 21 April 2009; published 21 May 2009. The work at MIT was supported under NASA contract 959203 from the Jet Propulsion Laboratory to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and NASA grants NAG5-8947 and NNX08AC04G. The work at JHU/APL was supported by the Voyager Interstellar Mission under NASA grant NNX07AB02G. The work at Caltech was supported by NASA grant NAS7-03001.Attached Files
Published - Richardson2009p4477Geophys_Res_Lett.pdf
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Additional details
- Eprint ID
- 15226
- Resolver ID
- CaltechAUTHORS:20090821-105226001
- 959203
- NASA
- NNX07AB02G
- NASA
- NAG5-8947
- NASA
- NNX08AC04G
- NASA
- NAS7-03001
- NASA
- Created
-
2009-08-24Created from EPrint's datestamp field
- Updated
-
2021-11-08Created from EPrint's last_modified field
- Caltech groups
- Space Radiation Laboratory
- Other Numbering System Name
- Space Radiation Laboratory
- Other Numbering System Identifier
- 2009-01