Magnetic clouds in the solar wind
Abstract
Two interplanetary magnetic clouds, characterized by anomalous magnetic field directions and unusually high magnetic field strengths with a scale of the order of 0.25 AU, are identified and described. As the clouds moved past a spacecraft located in the solar wind near Earth, the magnetic field direction changed by rotating approximately 180 deg nearly parallel to a plane which was essentially perpendicular to the ecliptic. The configuration of the magnetic field in the clouds might be that of a tightly wound cylindrical helix or a series of closed circular loops. One of the magnetic clouds was in a cold stream preceded by a shock, and it caused both a geomagnetic storm and a depression in the galactic cosmic ray intensity. No stream, geomagnetic storm, or large cosmic ray decrease was associated with the other magnetic cloud.
- Publication:
-
NASA STI/Recon Technical Report N
- Pub Date:
- March 1980
- Bibcode:
- 1980STIN...8022221B
- Keywords:
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- Interplanetary Magnetic Fields;
- Magnetic Clouds;
- Magnetic Field Configurations;
- Solar Magnetic Field;
- Solar Wind;
- Cosmic Rays;
- Magnetic Disturbances;
- Magnetic Flux;
- Shock Waves;
- Solar Protons;
- Solar Physics