THEMIS-C: On-Board Plasma Moments for Ions and Electrons

THEMIS-C satellite data provides spin-resolution measurements of plasma density, flux, velocity, pressure, and temperature for both ions and electrons. The dataset, produced by NASA, uses a combination of ESA and SST instrument data, corrected for spacecraft charging and instrument efficiency. All quantities are calculated in multiple coordinate systems including DSL, GSE, GSM, and MFA.

Use Cases

• Modeling magnetospheric plasma behavior based on ion and electron density and pressure measurements.
• Analyzing solar wind-magnetosphere interactions based on velocity data in GSE and GSM coordinates.
• Studying spacecraft charging effects based on data corrected using the EFI-measured spacecraft potential.
• Validating plasma simulation outputs based on the six-component symmetric pressure tensor.

Strengths

• Data includes measurements for both ions and electrons from two instruments, ESA and SST.
• Calculations are performed in four distinct coordinate systems: DSL, GSE, GSM, and MFA.
• Data is corrected for spacecraft charging and instrument-specific efficiency variations.

Limitations

• Column-level documentation is absent; field semantics must be inferred after download.
• Row count is unknown, which may limit suitability assessment.

Provenance

Source

National Aeronautics and Space Administration

Collection Method

On-board data outputs from the THEMIS-C satellite's ESA and SST instruments, with ground-based calculations.

Time Range

null

Freshness

Last updated 2026-03 04:32:42.739070; freshness should be verified.

Geography

null