LATITUDINAL STRUCTURE OF A CORONAL MASS EJECTION INFERRED FROM ULYSSES AND GEOTAIL OBSERVATIONS

Citation
Cm. Hammond et al., LATITUDINAL STRUCTURE OF A CORONAL MASS EJECTION INFERRED FROM ULYSSES AND GEOTAIL OBSERVATIONS, Geophysical research letters, 22(10), 1995, pp. 1169-1172
Citations number
14
Categorie Soggetti
Geosciences, Interdisciplinary
ISSN journal
00948276
Volume
22
Issue
10
Year of publication
1995
Pages
1169 - 1172
Database
ISI
SICI code
0094-8276(1995)22:10<1169:LSOACM>2.0.ZU;2-U
Abstract
We present the first observations of a CME by two spacecraft separated substantially in heliographic latitude. Ulysses and Geotail both see similar features in the plasma and magnetic field parameters during an interval in which Geotail is located in the deep magnetosheath (>150 R(E)) and Ulysses is located in the solar wind at 5 AU, similar to 20 degrees S of Geotail, and similar to 51 degrees W (in the direction of solar rotation) of Geotail. Based on the similarity in plasma and mag netic field parameters and similar inferred ejection times from the Su n for both features we argue that the same CME is observed by both spa cecraft. The portion of the CME observed by Ulysses is traveling much faster than the portion observed by Geotail. Thus the CME has signific ant latitudinal structure since at any given time the high latitude po rtion of the CME extends much further out in radial distance. Furtherm ore, this implies that a simple calculation of the arrival time of a C ME at the Earth may not be done if the observing spacecraft is located substantially away from the ecliptic plane.