Paper presented at AGU Fall Meeting, 8-12 December 1997, San Fransico, CA, USA
Since January 22, 1996 the CELIAS PM sensor on the SoHO spacecraft and the SWE experiment on the WIND spacecraft have provided simultaneous measurements of the solar wind plasma upstream from Earth's bow shock. SoHO, located between 193 and 266 Re in front of the Earth, is in a large halo orbit around the L1 Lagrangian point. The large radius of this orbit brings SoHO to distances as far as 105 Re away from the Sun-Earth line. WIND performs double lunar swings that causes it to traverse the region between Earth and L1. By comparing solar wind measurements from these two satellites, we have investigated how the solar wind changes as a function of spacecraft separation for distances along the Sun-Earth line from 22 to 270 Re, and transverse to it from 0 to 174 Re. We shall present initial results from cross-correlation studies of solar wind flux between SoHO and WIND as a function of separation distance for quiet periods as well as for short time periods during solar events. Correlations as a function of interplanetary magnetic field geometries have also been investigated. By concentrating on short time intervals, during which the distance between spacecraft are relatively constant, it has also been possible to trace the temporal and spatial evolution of structures in the solar wind. Results will be compared to studies using data from instruments on ISEE spacecraft at a different epoch in the solar cycle (King, 1986).
J. H. King, Solar Wind Parameters and Magnetospheric Coupling Studies, in Solar Wind-Magnetosphere Coupling, Y. Kamide and J. A. Slavin, eds., Terra Scientific, Tokyo, 1986, pp. 163.