Voyager 1 Plasma Data: Hourly Averaged Solar Wind Measurements

Hourly averaged plasma data from the Voyager 1 spacecraft's Faraday-cup detectors, measuring solar wind ions and electrons. The data includes velocity, density, and pressure parameters, fitted to a convected isotropic Maxwellian distribution with specified error margins. Collected by NASA, the dataset was last updated in March 2026.

Use Cases

• Modeling solar wind propagation based on velocity and density parameters.
• Analyzing plasma flow regimes from subsonic to supersonic based on the described energy scan coverage.
• Studying temporal variations in the solar wind using the one-hour averaged time-series data.
• Validating heliospheric simulation outputs against in-situ spacecraft measurements.

Strengths

• Data includes one-sigma errors, with speed and VR errors typically less than 0.5%.
• Parameters are derived from a best-fit convected isotropic Maxwellian distribution.
• Original sampling times ranged from 12 to 192 seconds, providing a high-resolution source for the hourly averages.

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

Measurements from two Faraday-cup detectors on the Voyager 1 spacecraft, with data processed into one-hour averages.

Time Range

Covers the Voyager 1 mission timeline; sampling was more frequent early in the mission.

Freshness

Last updated 2026-03-13 05:16:45.325766; freshness should be verified.

Geography

Interplanetary space along Voyager 1's trajectory.