4.5 Article

Interplanetary coronal mass ejection observed at STEREO-A, Mars, comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko, Saturn, and New Horizons en route to Pluto: Comparison of its Forbush decreases at 1.4, 3.1, and 9.9 AU

Journal

JOURNAL OF GEOPHYSICAL RESEARCH-SPACE PHYSICS
Volume 122, Issue 8, Pages 7865-7890

Publisher

AMER GEOPHYSICAL UNION
DOI: 10.1002/2017JA023884

Keywords

interplanetary coronal mass ejection; Forbush decrease; Mars; comet 67P; Saturn; New Horizons

Funding

  1. STFC [ST/K001000/1, ST/N000749/1, ST/K502121/1]
  2. NASA LWS [NNX15AB80G, NNG06EO90A]
  3. Programa de Apoyo a Proyectos de Investigacion e Innovacion Tecnologica [IA104416]
  4. NASA's Voyager project
  5. Swedish National Space Board [135/13]
  6. Swedish Research Council [621-2013-4191]
  7. CNES
  8. CNRS
  9. Observatoire de Paris
  10. Universite Paul Sabatier, Toulouse
  11. National Science Foundation [PLR-1245939, PLR-1341562]
  12. University of Delaware Department of Physics and Astronomy
  13. ESA-ESTEC Faculty
  14. Bartol Research Institute
  15. Science and Technology Facilities Council [ST/N000749/1, 1362686, ST/K001000/1, ST/K502121/1] Funding Source: researchfish

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We discuss observations of the journey throughout the Solar System of a large interplanetary coronal mass ejection (ICME) that was ejected at the Sun on 14 October 2014. The ICME hit Mars on 17 October, as observed by the Mars Express, Mars Atmosphere and Volatile EvolutioN Mission (MAVEN), Mars Odyssey, and Mars Science Laboratory (MSL) missions, 44h before the encounter of the planet with the Siding-Spring comet, for which the space weather context is provided. It reached comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko, which was perfectly aligned with the Sun and Mars at 3.1 AU, as observed by Rosetta on 22 October. The ICME was also detected by STEREO-A on 16 October at 1 AU, and by Cassini in the solar wind around Saturn on the 12 November at 9.9AU. Fortuitously, the New Horizons spacecraft was also aligned with the direction of the ICME at 31.6 AU. We investigate whether this ICME has a nonambiguous signature at New Horizons. A potential detection of this ICME by Voyager 2 at 110-111 AU is also discussed. The multispacecraft observations allow the derivation of certain properties of the ICME, such as its large angular extension of at least 116 degrees, its speed as a function of distance, and its magnetic field structure at four locations from 1 to 10 AU. Observations of the speed data allow two different solar wind propagation models to be validated. Finally, we compare the Forbush decreases (transient decreases followed by gradual recoveries in the galactic cosmic ray intensity) due to the passage of this ICME at Mars, comet 67P, and Saturn.

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