E5A Solar Wind Plasma Wave

Experiment 5 set out to investigate the properties of Solar Wind -- charged particles from the sun, forming a plasma -- by measuring radio-waves, magnetic fields, and plasma waves. The University of Iowa was responsible for experiment E5A, which used a 32 meter dipole-to-dipole antenna to scan over a 10Hz - 3MHz range, for the electrical component of the plasma waves. No "new" analysis has been performed on the original data; in the section below we copy over sections of the HELIOS E5A Final Report, which provide the most up-to-date information about the available data.

Principal Investigators


Prof. Donald A. Gurnett || University of Iowa
Dr. Paul J. Kellogg || University of Minnesota

E5A Data


     
Helios 1       Helios 2

University of Iowa: Helios E5A Plasma Wave Experiment

This page is dedicated to the E5A experiments and summarizes the well-designed E5A Solar Wind Plasma Wave Experiment site from the University of Iowa, PI of this suite of instruments. The available E5A data in our repository comes from the UIowa's Helios 1 and Helios 2 data directories.

In addition to detailing the E5A experiment, UIowa's site provides a brief overview of the Helios spacecrafts mission, short summaries of each experiment (E1-E10), and other useful links about the Helios mission. Professor Larry Granroth of UIowa is listed as the point of contact for this site.

Data Availability and Description

  • The available E5A data for
    • Helios 1 ranges: December 10th 1974 to March 31st 1975
    • Helios 2 ranges: January 1st 1976 to March 8th 1980
  • The data is sorted into 4 sub-directories named average, peak, vdiff, and sn for corresponding data
    • Individual E5A datasets are downloadable as ZIP compressed files
    • Each file contains all available data for a 3-month interval
  • To the best of our knowledge, the E5A data has NOT undergone a recent reanalysis (like E1-E4)
    • The most recent document describing the data seems to be the Final Report from 1986