STEREO-A PLASTIC: 1-Minute Solar Wind Proton Plasma Parameters
Updated 3mo ago
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Description
STEREO-A Plasma and Suprathermal Ion Composition (PLASTIC) data provides 1-minute values of solar wind proton flow speed, density, temperature, and thermal speed. The dataset includes flow velocity vector components, direction angles in HERTN and RTN coordinates, chi-squared and statistical uncertainties, various flags, and STEREO position information. This data product is provided by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration and was last updated on March 13, 2026.
Use Cases
Modeling solar wind propagation based on proton flow speed and velocity vector components.
Analyzing solar wind density and temperature fluctuations for space weather forecasting.
Correlating spacecraft position data with plasma parameter measurements for heliospheric studies.
Assessing data quality and uncertainty for scientific analysis using included chi-squared values and statistical uncertainty flags.
Strengths
Data includes multiple physical parameters per record: speed, density, temperature, thermal speed, and velocity vectors.
Provides statistical quality indicators such as chi-squared values and uncertainty flags.
Includes spacecraft positional data in multiple coordinate systems (HEE, HEEQ, HCI).
Limitations
Column-level documentation is absent; field semantics must be inferred after download.
Row count is unknown, which may limit suitability assessment for large-scale modeling.
Description metadata is limited; actual data quality requires manual inspection after download.
Provenance
Source
National Aeronautics and Space Administration
Collection Method
Measurements from the STEREO-A spacecraft's PLASTIC instrument.
Time Range
null
Freshness
Last updated 2026-03-13 04:45:31.664142; freshness should be verified.
Geography
null
License is listed as 'other-license-specified'; specific terms must be reviewed before use.