Interplanetary Shock Evolution from the Wind to the Ulysses Spacecraft

Interplanetary shocks are created by streams of magnetically charged energy released by the sun, known as solar wind. When a faster wave of solar wind overtakes a slower wave, there is a transfer of energy which creates a shock, these are also referred to as Fast Forward shocks. The purpose of this research is to find commonalities between shocks that were felt by the Wind and Ulysses space probes between the active years of the spacecraft, 1995-2009. The data used was taken from the IP shocks database. All shocks logged between 1995-2009 were cataloged by year, then, shocks that were mathematically possible based on the longitudinal position of the Wind and Ulysses satellites and shock speed were then specified. The analysis yielded 15 possible shocks over 14 years that traveled from the Wind to the Ulysses spacecraft. From this narrowed down list, three groups were formed based on characteristics of shock strength of each shock. Group one indicated that the shock strength increased from the Wind to the Ulysses, group two indicated a constant shock strength, and group three indicated a decrease in shock strength from the Wind to the Ulysses Spacecraft. We were able to make the conclusion that the latitude of the Ulysses Spacecraft does not affect the difference in shock strength from the Wind to the Ulysses satellite. Another conclusion being that in shock pairs that experienced an increase in shock strength as they traveled from the Wind to the Ulysses, weve found that as the velocity increased, the mach number of that shock also increased. Lastly, we were able to conclude that as the ratio of the downstream to upstream magnetic field increased the mach number also increased. This study will further develop our understanding of interplanetary shocks and what factors may affect their strength and travel time.