Voyager 1 Saturn Plasma Wave Spectra, 48-Second Averages from 1981

Voyager 1's Plasma Wave Spectrometer captured calibrated electric field intensities near Saturn's magnetosphere over a one-week period in 1981. The dataset provides 48-second geometric averages across 16 logarithmically spaced frequency channels ranging from 10 Hz to 56.2 kHz, stored in volts per meter. It was produced by NASA's Voyager mission team, with processing completed in 1988.

Use Cases

• Analyzing plasma wave frequency spectra based on the 16 logarithmically spaced channels.
• Studying temporal variations in electric field intensity based on the 48-second averaged measurements.
• Modeling the Saturnian magnetosphere environment based on the calibrated wave data.
• Validating plasma wave simulation results against historical Voyager 1 observations.

Strengths

• Data is calibrated and averaged, with a defined noise level of 0.000005.
• Covers a specific and complete one-week time range from 1981-08 24 to 1981-08-31.
• Provides measurements across a wide frequency range from 10 Hz to 56.2 kHz.

Limitations

• Data gaps are not zero-filled or tagged, requiring careful handling for time-series analysis.
• 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 (NASA), Voyager 1 mission.

Collection Method

Collected by the Voyager 1 Plasma Wave Spectrometer (PWS) instrument.

Time Range

1981-08-24T00:00:00.000Z to 1981-08-31T23:59:12.000Z

Freshness

Last updated 2026-03-13 07:58:00.190695; freshness should be verified.

Geography

Vicinity of Saturn's magnetosphere (deep space).