AbstractIn 1996 and 1997 during months when the orbit apogee was at XGSM⩾0 (May–October 1996 and April–August 1997), NASA's Polar spacecraft was skimming the high-latitude dayside magnetopause whenever the solar wind dynamic pressure (pdyn) was larger than ∼ 4 nPa. Magnetopause crossings occurred mostly under a northward and/or strongly dominating duskward-dawnward interplanetary magnetic field and took place at the poleward or dawn/dusk edge of the distant cusp. Polar data reveal that the indentation of cusp magnetopause may be deep, ∼2.5 RE below the axisymmetric surface of empirical magnetopause models. A significant IMF BY-dependence for probability of magnetopause encounter by Polar in a given local time sector suggests a formation of localized valleys extending away from the cusp proper along the merging lines on the magnetopause. Multipoint data in the distant cusp with the spacecraft separation on a ∼1–2 RE spatial scale could help to confirm this finding.


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    Title :

    The distant cusp and the surrounding magnetopause: A view in snapshots from polar


    Contributors:

    Published in:

    Advances in Space Research ; 31 , 5 ; 1353-1362


    Publication date :

    2002-01-01


    Size :

    10 pages




    Type of media :

    Article (Journal)


    Type of material :

    Electronic Resource


    Language :

    English




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