Abstract. During the first Earth gravity assist maneuver of JUICE on 20th August 2024 the spacecraft passed through the Earth plasmasphere for about 2 hours. Before closest approach at a distance of 2.1 RE the Jovian Electron and Ion spectrometer JEI of the PEP instrument suite was switched on for 40 min in an ion mode test configuration. The high plasma density of about 3000/cm3 (observed by the RPWI plasma wave instrument) led to a negative charging of the spacecraft which allowed a rare observation of the cold and dense plasmaspheric ion populations. Since the ions are only corotating with the Earth at a velocity of about 1 km/s at this distance the observed ion speed is dominated by the spacecraft velocity of about 8 km/s. For this reason ions with different mass appear at different energies in the energy spectrum observed by the JEI sensor. In addition the spacecraft potential leads to specific filtering of ion masses in the observed angular distribution. By calculating the sensor response function for these specific observing conditions it is possible to quantify densities of the different ion species. But this response calculation depends critically on the response of the JEI channel electron multipliers to the ion velocity and mass. Since the sensor was operated with a low post-acceleration further laboratory calibrations may be needed for this specific setup. Still we can already conclude from the observations that ions with mass >4 amu/q contribute at least 30 % to the observed total ion density. A flux peak observed in the energy spectrum at 15 eV can only be explained by the presence of heavy molecular ions with mass ~30 amu/q. Molecular ions have only been rarely detected in the outer Earth plasmasphere. The observations indicate that the JEI sensor can also be used to achieve ion composition measurements in the exospheres of the Jovian moons.

Abstract. The Juice flyby of Earth in August 2024 gave us the first chance to evaluate the performance of the Jovian Plasma Dynamics and Composition analyzer (JDC) in environments similar to those expected at Jupiter. JDC is one of the sensors belonging to the Particle Environment Package (PEP) on the Juice spacecraft. It measures positive and negative ions as well as electrons in the energy range 1 eV/q to 35 keV/q. One of the most challenging observations at the final destination is those of the low energy ion populations in the tenuous ionospheres of Jupiter's icy moons. During the Juice flyby of Earth we discovered that the energies of the positive ions observed by JDC were not easy to interpret due to a problem with the energy sweep. Using measurements made on ground, we were able to reconstruct the observed energies and construct a new sweeping scheme that solves the problem and that will greatly improve future observations. We also used a simulation to explain the effects of the spacecraft velocity and spacecraft potential on the recorded positive ion fluxes when Juice passed through the Earth's plasmasphere. The study highlights the importance of in-flight calibrations for optimizing the scientific return. Planetary flybys give access to multiple low-energy particle populations besides the mono-energetic and highly directional solar wind.

In order to improve the predictions of the ambient solar wind plasma at planets, moons, comets, and interplanetary spacecraft, we are conducting a multi-spacecraft investigation to study the spatial variation and temporal evolution of solar wind structures. Here we present our results on the spatial variation by investigating the impact of latitudinal spacecraft-target separation on extrapolation accuracy. Using ballistically propagated bulk velocity datasets of the ACE, STEREO A, Parker Solar Probe, and Solar Orbiter spacecraft, we perform statistical analyses and case studies. Our findings indicate that a separation of even a few degrees in latitude can introduce errors into propagation accuracy and needs to be taken into account when incorporating in-situ measurements into solar wind forecasting. We further investigate the role of the heliospheric current sheet in this phenomenon by utilizing coronal modeling. The results are useful in supporting out-of-ecliptic solar wind observations and for the improvement of propagation models.

Solar wind parameters at different locations in the inner heliosphere can be estimated using various solar wind extrapolation methods. The simple ballistic method extrapolates solar wind parameters from the point of measurement to a chosen heliospheric position by assuming that major solar wind structures are persistent and arrive relatively unaltered to the target position. The method considers the rotation period of the Sun while assuming a constant solar wind speed during radial propagation. We improve the simple ballistic model by considering the interaction between the slow and the fast solar wind with a pressure correction during the propagation. Instead of extrapolating from the position of a single spacecraft, we apply this pressure-corrected ballistic method to 2D speed maps of the solar source surface available from solar coronal models to determine the solar wind speed in the inner heliosphere in 3D, between latitudes of ±50°. We also take into account the effects of the solar differential rotation in our model. Our method is simple and fast, and it can be applied to different source surface datasets. The results of our model are validated with in situ data from the ACE spacecraft. We find that the pressure-corrected ballistic method can give accurate predictions of the solar wind in 3D.

The H2020 Europlanet-2020 programme, which ended on Aug 31st, 2019, included an activity called PSWS (Planetary Space Weather Services), which provided 12 services distributed over four different domains (A. Prediction, B. Detection, C. Modelling, D. Alerts) and accessed through the PSWS portal (http://planetaryspaceweather-europlanet.irap.omp.eu/): A1. 1D MHD Solar Wind Prediction Tool – HELIOPROPA, A2. Propagation Tool, A3. Meteor showers, A4. Cometary tail crossings – TAILCATCHER, B1. Lunar impacts – ALFIE, B2. Giant planet fireballs – DeTeCt3.1, B3. Cometary tails – WINDSOCKS, C1. Earth, Mars, Venus, Jupiter coupling- TRANSPLANET, C2. Mars radiation environment – RADMAREE, C3. Giant planet magnetodiscs – MAGNETODISC, C4. Jupiter’s thermosphere, D. Alerts. In the framework of the starting Europlanet-2024 programme, SPIDER will extend PSWS domains (A. Prediction, C. Modelling, E. Databases) services and give the European planetary scientists, space agencies and industries access to 6 unique, publicly available and sophisticated services in order to model planetary environments and solar wind interactions through the deployment of a dedicated run on request infrastructure and associated databases. C5. A service for runs on request of models of Jupiter’s moon exospheres as well as the exosphere of Mercury, C6. A service to connect the open-source Spacecraft-Plasma Interaction Software (SPIS) software with models of space environments in order to compute the effect of spacecraft potential on scientific instruments onboard space missions. Pre-configured simulations will be made for Bepi-Colombo and JUICE missions, C7. A service for runs on request of particle tracing models in planetary magnetospheres, E1. A database of the high-energy particle flux proxy at Mars, Venus and comet 67P using background counts observed in the data obtained by the plasma instruments onboard Mars Express (operational from 2003), Venus Express (2006–2014), and Rosetta (2014–2015); E2. A simulation database for Mercury and Jupiter’s moons magnetospheres and link them with prediction of the solar wind parameters from Europlanet-RI H2020 PSWS services. A1. An extension of the Europlanet-RI H2020 PSWS Heliopropa service in order to ingest new observations from Solar missions like the ESA Solar Orbiter or NASA Solar Parker Probe missions and use them as input parameters for solar wind prediction; These developments will be discussed in the presentation. The Europlanet 2020 Research Infrastructure project has received funding from the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement No 654208. The Europlanet 2024 Research Infrastructure project has received funding from the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement No 871149.

We investigate the differences between the effects of geomagnetic storms due to Interplanetary Coronal Mass Ejections (ICME) and due to Stream Interaction Regions or Corotating Interaction Regions (SIR/CIR) on the ionospheric F2-layer during the maximum of solar cycle 24. We have created a unique list of the ICME- and SIR/CIR-driven geomagnetic storm events for the time interval between November 2012 and October 2014. Finally, 42 clear ICME and 34 clear SIR/CIR events were selected for this analysis. The individual geomagnetic storm periods were grouped by seasons, time of day, and local time of Dstmin and were analyzed using three different methods: linear correlation analysis using 4-h averages of foF2 parameters and the geomagnetic indices (1st), daily variation of deltafoF2 (2nd), and 3D plotting: geomagnetic indices vs. time vs. deltafoF2 (3rd). The main phase day of the ICME- and SIR/CIR-induced geomagnetic storms was our main focus. We used manually evaluated ionospheric foF2 parameters measured at the Sopron ionosonde station and the geomagnetic indices (Kp, Dst, and AE) for this analysis. We have found that in most cases, the variation of the Dst index is the best indicator of the impact caused in the F2 layer. We conclude as well that the representation of the data by the third method gives a better description of the ICME and SIR/CIR-triggered storm behavior. In addition, our investigation shows that the SIR/CIR-related perturbations can be predicted with greater accuracy with the second method.

<p>The almost one decade of operation of ESAs Swarm mission provides an unprecedented opportunity to investigate the appearance of small-scale nonlinear magnetic field irregularities in the topside ionosphere in terms of various climatological and solar-cycle conditions. Within the framework of the EPHEMERIS project supported by ESA we have developed an index for the characterization of the intermittent status of the compressional and tangential (i.e., parallel and perpendicular to the mean background field, respectively) magnetic field fluctuations along the orbits of the Swarm spacecraft triplet. The index is called intermittency index, in short IMI. IMIs are computed for consecutive overlapping segments of Swarm’s magnetic field records by evaluating the deviation of their statistical distribution from the Gaussian distribution. By portraying the global spatial distribution of IMIs, it turns out that the most intensive intermittent fluctuations appear in the polar and equatorial regions, due to auroral field-aligned currents (FAC) and equatorial spread F and plasma bubble phenomena, respectively. Making use of the Adjusted Spherical Cap Harmonic (ASHA) expansion of IMIs, we model the distribution of the intermittent transverse magnetic fluctuations in the polar region in terms of geomagnetic latitude and magnetic local time (MLT), for different geomagnetic activities. We show that the most intermittent fluctuations at high latitudes are distributed about two oval regions that adjoin in the night sector. The ovals expand towards the equator with increasing geomagnetic activity. We argue that the boundaries of the poleward oval coincide with the locations of FACs, while the equatorward oval of intermittent fluctuations (separating from the poleward oval in the noon sector) corresponds to the ionosphere footprint of the plasmasphere boundary, i.e. the plasmapause. These findings are reinforced by independent aurora oval and plasmapause models.</p>

Corotating Interaction Regions (CIRs) are complex structures in the Heliosphere that arise from the interaction of fast and slow solar wind streams. The interface between fast and slow solar wind is called the stream interface, which often has considerable north-south tilt. We apply a sliding window correlation method on multi-spacecraft data in order to obtain the time delay between the spacecraft. Using these time delays and in-situ solar wind velocity measurements, we can shift the positions of two spacecraft, and, together with the position of the reference spacecraft, we can reconstruct the spatial orientation of the stream interface. We examined four CIRs from two different solar sources at the beginning of 2007 using ACE, WIND, and STEREO-A spacecraft data. The gradually increasing distance between STEREO-A and the other spacecraft provides an opportunity to determine the effects of spacecraft separation on the quality of the results. In three out of the four events, the determined planes generally follow the Parker spiral in the ecliptic, their off-ecliptic tilt is determined by the position of the source of the high-speed stream. For the fourth event, STEREO-A was probably too far away for this method to be successfully applied.

Solar wind parameters, such as the velocity, density or pressure of the solar wind, are one of the most important factors in space physics, and their knowledge at as many points in the heliosphere as possible contributes to a broader understanding of our solar system. Solar wind parameters at various points in the inner heliosphere are estimated using extrapolation methods. Currently, all spacecraft measuring solar wind parameters are in the ecliptic plane, thus it is enough to extrapolate the data from space probes to other spacecraft or celestial bodies near the ecliptic. Solar Orbiter, on the other hand, will soon leave the ecliptic and reach heliocentric latitudes of 34 degrees by the end of the mission, opening a new perspective. The ballistic method extrapolates solar wind parameters in one dimension from the point of measurement to a chosen heliospheric position. The simple ballistic model considers the average rotation period of the Sun for the extrapolation in longitude while assuming a constant solar wind velocity during radial propagation. Our improved solar wind propagation model takes into account the interaction of slow and fast solar wind by applying a pressure correction during the extrapolation. Applying this pressure-corrected ballistic method to data from solar corona models, we determined the solar wind parameters in the heliosphere in three dimensions. The advantage of our pressure-corrected ballistic method is that it is simple, it requires little calculation and it can be easily applied to the data of solar corona models in order to obtain a fast and efficient prediction in three dimensions.

Solar wind propagation models using in situ plasma observations as input can be improved by removing the signatures of Interplanetary Coronal Mass Ejections (ICMEs) from the input data. ICMEs are sporadic events that propagate in a given direction, hence their signatures in the plasma data should not be extrapolated to other heliocentric longitudes. As a result, in order to improve the prediction accuracy these should be filtered out. We create dedicated ICME lists providing the exact start and end times of ICMEs to numerous space probes such as ACE, STEREO A&B, SOHO, WIND, SolO, PSP, DSCOVER, VEX, MEX, Rosetta, BepiColombo, MAVEN and Messenger. We provide solar wind plasma and magnetic field predictions to any inner heliospheric position applying the ICME filter on the input dataset this way eliminating false alarms such as false ICME signature forecasts. Our corrected predictions contribute to the investigation of the background solar wind and related fields.

V tem pismu poročamo o prvi sistematični študiji tipa populacije supertermičnih elektronov v sončevem vetru, imenovane ojačitve pri 90° PA (ang. pitch angle). Ta populacija je bila najdena v bližini medplanetarnih udarnih valov, pri čemer smo analizirali dvourne časovne intervale centrirane na udarnih valovih. Ojačitve pri 90° PA smo našli pri 114 od 232 (49 %) dogodkov, kar pomeni, da je ta tip populacije dokaj pogost v sončevem vetru. Statistična analiza lastnosti medplanetarnih udarnih valov je pokazala, da ni bistvenih razlik v lastnostih med udarnimi valovi ob katerih so bile ojačitve prosotne in tistimi kjer jih ni bilo. Preliminarna analiza fluktuacij električnega polja pa je pokazala, da je njihova aktivnost intenzivnejša v bližini udarnih valov, ob katerih smo našli ojačitve pri 90° PA.

<div>The importance of background solar wind is unquestionable as it carries information on the solar surface conditions and has a major role in space weather events. The current solar minimum is a perfect time period for investigations regarding this field, with several space probes providing in-situ measurements.</div><div> </div><div>Our aim is to determine the spatial variations in the background solar wind through multi-spacecraft data analysis, including recent missions, such as Parker Solar Probe and Solar Orbiter. We adjust for the radial and longitudinal time-lags between the different spacecraft, then compare their solar wind plasma measurements. The effects of latitudinal differences between the observations is then backmapped to coronagraph imagery. The results will be useful for further analysis of inner heliospheric structures, for the improvement of propagation models, and to support the analysis of out-of-ecliptic solar wind observations.</div>

In order to improve the predictions of the solar wind environment at planets, moons, comets and interplanetary spacecraft, we study the temporal evolution and spatial variation of solar wind structures. Special emphasis is put on the fast and slow solar wind stream interaction regions (SIRs or CIRs). Currently, a huge fleet of solar observatories is available throughout the inner heliosphere, hence a multi-spacecraft study of the propagation and evolution of these structures is possible. We improve solar wind predictions by removing ICME signatures from the input data to reduce the number of false alarms. Ballistic radial propagation models are refined by pressure correction at CIRs. Latitudinal effects are taken into account to improve the models and to extend our predictions to three dimensions.

The solar wind properties at a given point in the heliosphere depend strongly on the source surface characteristics, the dynamical effects during propagation and the transient events. We study the background solar wind structures after modelling their propagation throughout the 3-dimensional heliosphere. We remove the transient events from the observations, then apply the ballistic propagation method corrected for pressure gradients at stream interactions. A detailed multi-spacecraft investigation of the radial and latitudinal effects improves our model. These results are applied to study the temporal evolution of the solar wind by excluding the spatial effects through adjusting for the timelag calculated from the spacecraft separations.

The Parker Solar Probe and Solar Orbiter spacecraft make whole new spatial and time scales available in the inner Heliosphere. With these new data, we study directional discontinuities that are common structures in the solar wind in this region. Their radial distribution can provide insight into the physical processes of this virtually collisionless plasma. Applying a method (Erdős & Balogh, 2008) based on minimum variance analysis to select directional discontinuities in magnetic field data, we determine their number as a function of distance from the Sun. How the directional discontinuity occurrence rate depends on the solar wind speed is also part of our analysis.

<p>Co-rotating Interaction Regions are complex and fascianting structures in the Heliosphere that <br>play an important role in space weather. They arise from the fast solar wind interacting with the <br>slow solar wind streams. The interface between fast and slow solar wind is called the stream <br>interface, and it is common for CIRs to produce forward shock at the leading edge and reverse <br>shock at the trailing edge. CIRs often have considerable tilts in the north-south axis, owing to the magnetic <br>conditions on the Sun.</p><p><br>Examination of the spatial structure of CIRs, – most importantly the aforementioned tilt – is not <br>an easy task. We attempt a multi-spacecraft investigation in order to examine the spatial <br>structure of CIRs on different distance scales. Using all available spacecraft data nearby, the tilt <br>of the stream interface can be determined considering the time delays of the effects caused by <br>the CIR recorded by each spacecraft. Our final aim is to improve solar wind propagation <br>methods with these detailed CIR results.</p>

Aims : The solar wind pressure is an important parameter of space weather, which plays a crucial role in the interaction of the solar wind with the planetary plasma environment. Here we investigate the possibility of determining a solar wind pressure proxy from Rosetta magnetic field data, measured deep inside the induced magnetosphere of comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko. This pressure proxy would be useful not only for other Rosetta related studies but could also serve as a new, independent input database for space weather propagation to other locations in the Solar System. Method : For the induced magnetospheres of comets the magnetic pressure in the innermost part of the pile-up region is balanced by the solar wind dynamic pressure. Recent investigations of Rosetta data have revealed that the maximum magnetic field in the pile-up region can be approximated by magnetic field measurements performed in the inner regions of the cometary magnetosphere, close to the boundary of the diamagnetic cavity, from which the external solar wind pressure can be estimated. Results : We were able to determine a solar wind pressure proxy for the time interval when the Rosetta spacecraft was located near the diamagnetic cavity boundary, between late April 2015 and January 2016. We then compared our Rosetta pressure proxy to solar wind pressure extrapolated to comet 67P from near-Earth. After the exclusion of disturbances caused by transient events, we found a strong correlation between the two datasets.

Solar wind propagation from the point of measurement to an arbitrary target in the heliosphere is an important input for heliospheric, planetary and cometary studies. In this paper a new kinematic propagation method, the magnetic lasso method is presented. Compared to the simple ballistic approach our method is based on reconstructing the ideal Parker spiral connecting the target with the Sun by testing a previously defined range of heliographic longitudes. The model takes into account the eventual evolution of stream–stream interactions and handles these with a simple model based on the dynamic pressure difference between the two streams. Special emphasis is given to input data cleaning by handling interplanetary coronal mass ejection events as data gaps due to their different propagation characteristics. The solar wind bulk velocity is considered radial and constant. Density and radial magnetic field are propagated by correcting with the inverse square of the radial distance. The model has the advantage that it can be coded easily and fitted to the problem; it is flexible in selecting and handling input data and requires little running time.

Under Horizon 2020, the Europlanet 2020 Research Infrastructure (EPN2020-RI) will include an entirely new Virtual Access Service, “Planetary Space Weather Services” (PSWS) that will extend the concepts of space weather and space situational awareness to other planets in our Solar System and in particular to spacecraft that voyage through it. PSWS will make twelve new services accessible to the research community, space agencies, and industrial partners planning for space missions. These services will in particular be dedicated to the following key planetary environments: Mars (in support of the NASA MAVEN and European Space Agency (ESA) Mars Express and ExoMars missions), comets (building on the outstanding success of the ESA Rosetta mission), and outer planets (in preparation for the ESA JUpiter ICy moon Explorer mission), and one of these services will aim at predicting and detecting planetary events like meteor showers and impacts in the Solar System. This will give the European planetary science community new methods, interfaces, functionalities and/or plugins dedicated to planetary space weather as well as to space situational awareness in the tools and models available within the partner institutes. A variety of tools (in the form of web applications, standalone software, or numerical models in various degrees of implementation) are available for tracing propagation of planetary and/or solar events through the Solar System and modelling the response of the planetary environment (surfaces, atmospheres, ionospheres, and magnetospheres) to those events. But these tools were not originally designed for planetary event prediction and space weather applications. PSWS will provide the additional research and tailoring required to apply them for these purposes. PSWS will be to review, test, improve and adapt methods and tools available within the partner institutes in order to make prototype planetary event and space weather services operational in Europe at the end of 2017. To achieve its objectives PSWS will use a few tools and standards developed for the Astronomy Virtual Observatory (VO). This paper gives an overview of the project together with a few illustrations of prototype services based on VO standards and protocols.