Density spikes 17/08/23

[Cat Perkinton]

Hoping someone can shed light on the huge spikes in solar wind density showing here... I dont recall seeing such a mahoussive swing before, although likely I have just not paid enough attention 🤨- 

[Christopher S.]

Microparticles and small dust fields are usually the causes of these types of spikes. I'm comfortable with the notion that plasma can fall off of a CME or be sourced from solar wind and accumulate on attracting small-scale bodies, packing a bit more energy or matter than typical debris or simple particles. Still, we're talking about matter on a microscopic scale, and so is impressive on this arbitrarily-scaled graph but in the grand scope of what's transpiring is really dust in the wind. Literally.

On a more technical level I will note that the instrument used to make the measurement is part of the presentation of the data spikes. If you check EPAM you'll note no corresponding spikes, and at other times EPAM will spike with no change in data from other sources. We can surmise from this that "what is happening" is smaller than a true solar event, requiring more discrete (astro)physics to explain.

Edited August 17, 2023 by Christopher S.

[Jesterface23]

ACE and DSCOVR are fairly close to each other and DSCOVR doesn't have similar spikes. I think it is just one of the characteristics of ACE's data where it spikes in the different solar wind parameters. There was a brief data gap in the EPAM which shows there may have been some data issues there too.

[Christopher S.]

19 hours ago, Jesterface23 said:

ACE and DSCOVR are fairly close to each other and DSCOVR doesn't have similar spikes. I think it is just one of the characteristics of ACE's data where it spikes in the different solar wind parameters. There was a brief data gap in the EPAM which shows there may have been some data issues there too.

Or it's particles of dust that happened to land in one and not the other. It's on a small enough scale that assigning large-scale notions such as "it would have been noticed by the neighboring spacecraft" presume too much evenness and perfectness. That's the boat I'm on, and you're welcome to join. I'm also not happy just casting "data issues" across it. The data looks fine, but its what presents that data which does not fit neatly into one's idea of the satellite's environment. If these were true data issues, we ought to then throw out all of the data of the spacecraft, because it could be lying, right? Or, it's just dust.

[MinYoongi]

2 hours ago, Christopher S. said:

Or it's particles of dust that happened to land in one and not the other. It's on a small enough scale that assigning large-scale notions such as "it would have been noticed by the neighboring spacecraft" presume too much evenness and perfectness. That's the boat I'm on, and you're welcome to join. I'm also not happy just casting "data issues" across it. The data looks fine, but its what presents that data which does not fit neatly into one's idea of the satellite's environment. If these were true data issues, we ought to then throw out all of the data of the spacecraft, because it could be lying, right? Or, it's just dust.

Its not dust. Nasa and many renomed Spaceweather Experts have shed light on this when DSCOVR was down in 2019 and replaced by Ace still. Ace regulary has those spikes, and also the issue of shwoing the density too low. Again: I like your theory, but it does not apply here.

[Jesterface23]

We have a few old satellites and one broken new-ish satellite currently. ACE's latest released science data that I can find only goes up to 2021, so we probably won't be getting any answers from that for a while.

I can't say what exactly is going on with ACE, but any major spikes shouldn't be taken as exact values. If you compare raw past data to the science data you will find that similar spikes are removed.

 

I pulled up a random date, 2020/02/20 - 2020/03/01

Raw Data

Science Data