Ulysses COSPIN-HET: Full-Resolution Particle Events from 1990 Onward

NASA's Ulysses spacecraft COSPIN-High Energy Telescope dataset provides full-resolution pulse-height analysis (PHA) events for cosmic rays and solar energetic particles. Each file contains detailed information for every non-zero PHA event, with 54 columns per event, including raw channels, energy deposits, and derived particle charge and trajectory. The data is organized in daily files from at least 1990 onward, with a priority system favoring the capture of rare heavy nuclei.

Use Cases

• Deriving particle charge, mass, kinetic energy, and trajectory based on the detailed PHA event information.
• Analyzing the composition and flux of solar energetic particle events, particularly heavy nuclei.
• Studying the selection bias in particle detection due to the described three-level priority system for telemetry.
• Correlating particle events with solar activity using the fractional year and day-of-year timestamps.

Strengths

• Each event is represented by a line with 54 columns providing complete information.
• Data includes a detailed file format description at the start of each daily file.
• A priority system is implemented to assure capture of almost all relatively rare heavy element nuclei.

Limitations

• Column-level documentation is absent; field semantics must be inferred after download.
• Row count is unknown, which may limit suitability assessment.
• The dataset is a sampled subset of all incident events due to telemetry constraints.

Provenance

Source

National Aeronautics and Space Administration

Collection Method

Collected by the COSPIN-High Energy Telescope (HET) instrument on the Ulysses spacecraft.

Time Range

Data spans from at least 1990 (year 090) onward, as indicated by the file naming convention.

Freshness

Last updated 2026-03-13 05:37:22.877867; freshness should be verified.

Geography

Heliospheric measurements from the Ulysses solar polar orbiter.