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Ulysses Observations of the Solar Wind Out of the Ecliptic Plane

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Solar and Astrophysical Magnetohydrodynamic Flows

Part of the book series: NATO ASI Series ((ASIC,volume 481))

Abstract

This chapter presents a summary of Ulysses plasma observations of the global structure of the solar wind in the inner heliospliere (1.3 AU < R < 5.4 AU) made between the maximum and minimum phases of solar cycle 22. Salient features are the presence of a low speed, variable flow that marks the extension of the heliomagnetic streamer belt into interplanetary space. A high speed, relatively structure-free wind flows from the large-area coronal holes that cover both solar polar caps. The streamer belt was roughly planar and tilted by about 30° relative to the ecliptic plane just after the Ulysses Jupiter encounter. It evolved to an approximately 42°- wide disk parallel to the equatorial plane at the time of perihelion. The 30° tilt at the beginning of the high latitude traverse of Ulysses caused the generation of a series of strong corotating interaction regions that were bounded by equatorward-propagating forward shocks at their leading edges and poleward-propagating reverse shocks at their trailing edges. A new class of forward-reverse shock pairs driven by the over-expansion of coronal mass ejections was also observed. Both types of shocks were observed up to — 58° heliographic latitude. The radial and latitudinal dependences of many basic quantities that characterize the high-latitude solar wind are documented and discussed.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Los Alamos National Laboratory, 87545, Los Alamos, NM, USA

    W. C. Feldman, J. L. Phillips, B. L. Barraclough & C. M. Hammond

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  1. W. C. Feldman
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  2. J. L. Phillips
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  3. B. L. Barraclough
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  1. Department of Physics, University of Crete, Heraklion, Greece

    Kanaris C. Tsinganos

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© 1996 Kluwer Academic Publishers

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Feldman, W.C., Phillips, J.L., Barraclough, B.L., Hammond, C.M. (1996). Ulysses Observations of the Solar Wind Out of the Ecliptic Plane. In: Tsinganos, K.C. (eds) Solar and Astrophysical Magnetohydrodynamic Flows. NATO ASI Series, vol 481. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-009-0265-7_13

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