Localization of the Cluster satellites in the geospace environment

The geometry of the terrestrial magnetized environment, or geospace, varies widely in space and time due to the Earth's magnetic field interactions with the interplanetary medium. A spacecraft's location in geospace is only approximately determined by its coordinates since the environment is inhomogeneous, with distinct physical processes occurring in different regions. Knowing the location in the geospace offers a strong support for data analysis. This paper introduces a new dataset, Geospace Region and Magnetospheric Boundary identification (GRMB), which provides labelled positions for each Cluster spacecraft over the whole mission, with respect to the local environment. This continuous labelling is based on manual selection, supported by browsing 44 different Cluster data products. The GRMB dataset includes 15 labels spanning from the plasmasphere to solar wind regions. Its consistency is validated over 7 years against reference lists and by the physical properties of the GRMB regions. Over those years, Cluster spent a similar proportion of the time (≈15%) in the regions labelled lobe, plasmasheet, plasmasheet transition region, magnetosheath and solar wind.

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Publication Details

Journal
Scientific Data
Published
2025-02-22
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1038/s41597-025-04639-z
Primary Topic
Space Satellite Systems and Control
Type
article
Field-Weighted Citation Impact
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article

Localization of the Cluster satellites in the geospace environment

D. Herment, A. Masson, B. Grison, Ondřej Santolík et al.
Scientific Data
Space Satellite Systems and Control
article

Localization of the Cluster satellites in the geospace environment

D. Herment, A. Masson, B. Grison, Ondřej Santolík, Michal Švanda, Miroslav Dvořák, Mychajlo Hajoš, Johan De Keyser, Romain Maggiolo, F. Darrouzet, Jan Souček, M. G. G. T. Taylor, Anna Jeřábková
article en

Abstract

The geometry of the terrestrial magnetized environment, or geospace, varies widely in space and time due to the Earth's magnetic field interactions with the interplanetary medium. A spacecraft's location in geospace is only approximately determined by its coordinates since the environment is inhomogeneous, with distinct physical processes occurring in different regions. Knowing the location in the geospace offers a strong support for data analysis. This paper introduces a new dataset, Geospace Region and Magnetospheric Boundary identification (GRMB), which provides labelled positions for each Cluster spacecraft over the whole mission, with respect to the local environment. This continuous labelling is based on manual selection, supported by browsing 44 different Cluster data products. The GRMB dataset includes 15 labels spanning from the plasmasphere to solar wind regions. Its consistency is validated over 7 years against reference lists and by the physical properties of the GRMB regions. Over those years, Cluster spent a similar proportion of the time (≈15%) in the regions labelled lobe, plasmasheet, plasmasheet transition region, magnetosheath and solar wind.

Scientific DataVol. 12(1)
Royal Belgian Institute for Space Aeronomy (BE), European Space Astronomy Centre (ES), Czech Academy of Sciences, Institute of Atmospheric Physics (CZ), European Space Research and Technology Centre (NL)
Climate action
Openalex Percentile: Top 96%
Space Satellite Systems and Control
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