MMS HPCA: Magnetospheric Ion Composition Data at 0.625-Second Resolution

Five ion species—protons (H+), alpha particles (He++), helium ions (He+), singly charged Oxygen (O+), and background counts—are measured at 63 energy levels. The Hot Plasma Composition Analyzer (HPCA) on the MMS mission records data for 16 elevation anodes and 16 azimuths every 0.625 seconds. This Level 2 burst mode dataset is produced by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration.

Use Cases

• Modeling plasma behavior in Earth's magnetosphere based on multi-species ion measurements.
• Analyzing energy distribution of ions from 1 eV to 40 keV based on the described energy analyzer.
• Studying temporal variations in space plasma at sub-second resolution based on the 0.625-second sampling rate.
• Investigating the relative abundance of specific ion species (H+, He++, He+, O+) in space environments.

Strengths

• Measures five distinct ion species, enabling multi-component plasma analysis.
• Provides high-temporal-resolution data with a sampling period of 0.625 seconds.
• Covers a broad energy range for ions, from 1 eV to 40 keV.

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 and parsing.

Provenance

Source

National Aeronautics and Space Administration

Collection Method

Collected by the Hot Plasma Composition Analyzer (HPCA) instrument on the Magnetospheric Multiscale (MMS) mission.

Freshness

Last updated 2026-03-13 06:01:52.238422; freshness should be verified.