File: AAREADME.TXT Version: NSSDC 11/15/2001 JFC ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Interplanetary Magnetic Field Data from Pioneer Venus Orbiter This directory holds data from the magnetometer experiment on Pioneer Venus Orbiter for the orbital phase of the PVO mission at Venus. See file PVOMAG_NMC for an experiment description from the NSSDC Master Catalog. Interplanetary data were acquired when the spacecraft was outside the bow shock of the planetary ionosphere. At present the COHO data from PVO include hourly average magnetic field magnitude and components in directory HOUR. The file PVOMAGHR_FMT.txt gives the data set description and format. Since this data set is in the planet-centered Venus Solar Observer (VSO) coordinate system, users may prefer to work with the heliographic/RTN version produced by NSSDC and located in directory PIONEER_VENUS/MERGED as part of a merged PVO solar wind magnetic field and plasma data set. These merged data may also be browsed, plotted, and retrieved with the COHOWeb data system (see below). Related Information and Data: Further details on the spacecraft, experiment, data sets at NSSDC, and related WWW sites can be found on the Pioneer Venus flight project page: http://nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov/space/ Hour averages of the interplanetary solar wind data from, and hourly heliocentric coordinates of, Pioneer Venus Orbiter and other interplanetary spacecraft may be also be accessed and plotted on-line through the COHOWeb service based at the same WWW site as above. Acknowledgement: Use of these data in publications should be accompanied at minimum by acknowledgements of the National Space Science Data Center and the responsible Principal Investigator defined in the experiment documentation provided here.