FORMAT DESCRIPTION FOR AEROS B RETARDING POTENTIAL ANALYZER DATA

This AEROS data set covers the time period from July 20, 1974 to September 5, 1975.
It provide the electron and ion densities and temperatures and photoelectron
fluxes for several energies.

More information about the AEROS satellites, experiments and data sets can
found in NSSDC's Master Catalog at http://nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov/nmc/.

The data are provided in monthly files: aerosb_rpa_yyyy_mm.asc

Each data record contains the following data

Year			I4		yyyy
Day of year @	I4		ddd
Hour @			I3		hh (Universal Time)
Minute @		I3		mm
Second @		I6		milliseconds
SLT @			F6.2	[decimal hours] solar local time
	LT is calculated from UT and Longitude. For a few cases the longitude
	value was corrupted in the original data. In these cases the Solar
	Time (hh, mm) as provided on the original data tape was used and was
	marked as a negative value.
GLT	hour		I3 		hh	Geomagnetic local time 
GLT	minute		I3 		mm	Geomagnetic local time 
GLT	second		I3 		ss	Geomagnetic local time 
Solar zenith angle      F6.1	[degree]
Mean Julian date (1)    I6		[days]
Mean Julian date (2)	I8		[1.e-6 days]
Geodetic latitude*      F7.2	[degrees]
Geodetic longitude*     F7.2	[degrees] East
Geomagnetic latitude*   F7.2	[degrees]
Geomagnetic longitude*  F7.2	[degrees] East
Magnetic inclination*   F7.2	[degrees]
Magnetic declination*   F7.2	[degrees]
Invariant latitude*     F7.2	[degrees]
L value                 F6.2	McIlwain index
Magnetic field          I4 		[100 nT] at satellite height
Altitude                F7.2	[km]
F10.7                   I4
Sunspot number          I4
Kp index                F5.1	
Ap index                I4	
Satellite               I2	 	(1 - Aeros A, 2 - Aeros B)
Orbit number            I6		only active orbits are counted; about every
                                second orbit the power was off.
Mode                    I2		1 - Ne, Te, and photoelectron fluxes 
                                3 - Ti and ion density correct and uncorrected
                                4 - Like 3 plus ion composition 
ln(Ne)               	F8.4	[Ne/m-3]  natural logarithm of electron density
ln(Ni) $             	F8.4	[Ni/m-3]  ln of total ion density uncorrected
ln(Ni)cor $          	F8.4	[Ni/m-3]  multiplied by correction factor 
                                1.25 obtained from comparisons with other AEROS data
ln(Ef1)*             	F8.4    logarithm of flux [m-2 s-1] of electrons with E > 5 eV 
ln(Ef2)*             	F8.4 	logarithm of flux [m-2 s-1] of electrons with E > 21 eV
ln(Ef3)*            	F8.4 	logarithm of flux [m-2 s-1] of electrons with E > 10 eV
ln(Ef4)*             	F8.4 	logarithm of flux [m-2 s-1] of electrons with E > 12 eV
ln(Ef5)*             	F8.4 	logarithm of flux [m-2 s-1] of electrons with E >  8 eV
Electron temperature    I6		[K]  
Ion temperature $       I6		[K]	
light ions              F6.1	Percentage of light ions
atomic ions $           F6.1	Percentage of atomic ions
molcular ions $         F6.1	Percentage of molecular ions
He+ ions                F6.1	Percentage of helium ions
Potential               I4		[10 mV]  
Offset ion density      I5		[1.E-4]  
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
	* only given when mode=1
	$ only given when mode=3 or 4
	@ computed from the modified julian date and time given on tape
	* as provided by the AEROS team; we found cases where the values were out of bounds;
	  we corrected the geodetic and geomagnetic coordinates where rounding errors (most
	  likely) caused values to be slightly out of bounds.