Helios 1 E6: Hourly Particle Fluxes from 0.3 to 1.0 AU

Hourly averaged fluxes of electrons, protons, and alpha particles measured by the Helios-A and Helios-B deep space probes. The data covers the energy range from 0.3 to 2.0 MeV for electrons, 4.0 to 51 MeV for protons, and 2.0 to 48 MeV for alpha particles, with measurements taken between 0.3 and 1.0 astronomical units from the Sun. This dataset was developed by the Federal Republic of Germany in cooperation with NASA, with detailed documentation available in Raumfahrtforschung, Volume 19, Number 5, 1975.

Use Cases

• Modeling solar energetic particle events based on proton and alpha particle flux measurements.
• Analyzing the temporal evolution of cosmic ray intensities based on hourly averaged fluxes.
• Studying the relationship between electron fluxes and interplanetary magnetic field structures.
• Validating space weather prediction models using historical particle data from 0.3 to 1.0 AU.

Strengths

• Provides multi-particle species data (electrons, protons, alphas) across multiple energy channels.
• Includes both differential and integral flux measurements for key energy thresholds.
• Data collection spans a significant radial distance from the Sun, from 0.3 to 1.0 AU.
• Standard deviations for some energy channel averages are provided, indicating data quality metrics.

Limitations

• Description metadata is limited; actual data quality requires manual inspection after download.
• Column-level documentation is absent; field semantics must be inferred after download.
• The description notes that energy boundaries for some electron channels are only rough estimates.

Provenance

Source

National Aeronautics and Space Administration

Collection Method

Measured by a particle telescope instrument (E6) on the Helios-A and Helios-B spacecraft.

Time Range

The temporal coverage is not explicitly stated in the provided input.

Freshness

Last updated 2026-03-13 07:05:54.622638; freshness should be verified.

Geography

Interplanetary space from 0.3 to 1.0 astronomical units from the Sun.