STEREO-A PLASTIC: 2-Hour Solar Wind Iron Plasma Parameters

2-hour averaged solar wind iron plasma parameters from the STEREO-A spacecraft. The data includes iron flow speed, density, thermal speed, iron to proton density ratio, and iron charge state, produced by NASA. The dataset was last updated on March 13, 2026.

Use Cases

• Model solar wind dynamics based on iron flow speed and thermal speed.
• Study ion composition ratios in the solar wind based on iron to proton density ratio.
• Analyze plasma charge state distributions based on iron charge state data.
• Validate plasma fitting algorithms based on parameters used in the V and Vth Maxwellian fitting.

Strengths

• Data includes averaged values over a 2-hour cadence, providing a regular time-series.
• Parameters include iron charge state used in a specific fitting algorithm.
• Dataset is produced by NASA, a recognized authority in space science.

Limitations

• Column-level documentation is absent; field semantics must be inferred after download.
• Row count is unknown, which may limit suitability assessment.
• Description metadata is limited; actual data quality requires manual inspection after download.

Provenance

Source

National Aeronautics and Space Administration

Freshness

Last updated 2026-03-13 11:17:21.051102; freshness should be verified.