Abstract The AMPTE/CCE spacecraft has, on occasion, encountered the Earth's bow shock near apogee (∼9 Earth radii). During one encounter, on 1 Nov 1984, the bow shock was observed to pass back and forth over the spacecraft several times in a periodic fashion. The period of the oscillation was about 20 seconds, and an upstream wave with a similar period was observed in the solar wind just prior to the multiple shock crossings. Minimum variance analysis of the shock crossings shows that the magnetic field carried out a single rotation through 360° for each pair of shock crossings. This implies that the shock was responding to the rotation of the field in the upstream wave, and we show how the plasma displacement associated with the upstream wave can produce the observed oscillations. These data may provide support for the wave-like structure of quasi-parallel shocks predicted in simulations.
Periodic oscillations of the quasi-parallel bow shock as observed with the AMPTE/CCE spacecraft
Advances in Space Research ; 11 , 9 ; 219-222
1991-01-01
4 pages
Aufsatz (Zeitschrift)
Elektronische Ressource
Englisch
Tema Archiv | 1985
|Tema Archiv | 1985
|Tema Archiv | 1985
|AIAA | 1985
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