Publication Date:
1984-01-01
Description:
In order to examine the relative locations of auroral particle fluxes and field-aligned currents and to identify the main charge carriers of the field-aligned currents at auroral latitudes, nearly simultaneous data from the vector magnetometers on MAGSAT and of precipitating electrons with energies between 300 eV and 20 keV observed by TIROS-N and NOAA-6 are compared. For more than fifty cases, MAGSAT and TIROS and/or NOAA orbits occurred within two minutes (mostly within one minute) of each other in the dawn/dusk sectors, during the time the IMS meridian chains of ground magnetometers were operating from November, 1979 through January, 1980. The latitudinal boundaries of precipitating electrons are found to line up within 1° with those of the field-aligned current region. Major portions of the upward field-aligned currents in the poleward half of the evening-sector auroral oval and in the equator-ward half of the morining-sector auroral oval appear to be carried by the precipitating keV electrons. © 1984, Society of Geomagnetism and Earth, Planetary and Space Sciences. All rights reserved.
Print ISSN:
0022-1392
Topics:
Geosciences
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