Potential solar influences at Jupiter within a period spanning the impact of comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 with the planet (SOLTIP World Interval IV)

Abstract

The impact of comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 (SL-9) with Jupiter occurred within a period marking the change over from solar maximum to solar minimum activity in solar cycle 22. In consequence, co-rotating interaction regions, flare-related disturbances, and coronal mass ejections potentially perturbed the Jovian magnetosphere during the period of cometary impact. SOLTIP (Solar Connection with Transient Interplanetary Processes) has called a World Interval, SOLTIP Interval IV, suitably bridging the predicted period of arrival of dust and significant cometary fragments at the planet and, within this time span, 9 May – 9 October, 1994, multi-disciplinary space-based and ground-based solar observations are in process of being formally coordinated, analyzed and made available to observers of the SL-9/Jupiter encounter. In this way, diverse aspects of the circumstances and consequences of the impact of comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 with the Jovian magnetosphere can be interpreted against the background of whatever solar-related interplanetary activity concomitantly occurred.