MMS HPCA: Magnetospheric Ion Composition at 0.625-Second Resolution

NASA's Magnetospheric Multiscale (MMS) mission provides ion composition data from the Hot Plasma Composition Analyzer (HPCA). The Level 2 burst mode dataset contains counts for five ion species across 63 energy levels and 16 azimuths, captured every 0.625 seconds. It measures protons, alpha particles, helium ions, singly charged oxygen, and background counts in the 1 eV to 40 keV energy range.

Use Cases

• Modeling magnetospheric plasma dynamics based on high-resolution ion species counts.
• Analyzing energy distribution of ions based on measurements across 63 energy levels.
• Studying spacecraft spin-phase resolved data based on 16 azimuth measurements per half-spin.
• Investigating relative abundances of H+, He++, He+, and O+ ions in near-Earth space.

Strengths

• Data captures five distinct ion species (H+, He++, He+, O+, background).
• High temporal resolution with measurements taken every 0.625 seconds.
• Provides multi-dimensional data across 63 energy levels and 16 azimuth angles.

Limitations

• Column-level documentation is absent; field semantics must be inferred after download.
• Row count is unknown, which may limit suitability assessment.
• Data is provided in a BIN format, which may require specialized tools for access.

Provenance

Source

National Aeronautics and Space Administration

Collection Method

Collected by the Hot Plasma Composition Analyzer (HPCA) instruments aboard the Magnetospheric Multiscale (MMS) spacecraft.

Time Range

null

Freshness

Last updated 2026-03-13 06:21:44.413793; freshness should be verified.

Geography

null