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]
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* 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.