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Wind SMS Suite SupraThermal Ion Composition Spectrometer (SMS/STICS) Energy-Resolved Pitch-Angle Distributions (ERPAs), Level 2 (L2), 30-minute Data in Solar Wind

Metadata Updated: September 19, 2025

The data include Wind STICS 30-minute Energy-Resolved Pitch-Angle Distributions (ERPAs) for selected ion species using triple coincidence (H+, He+, He2+, C5+, O+, O6+, and Fe10+) and double coincidence (H+, He+, He2+, O+, O6+) measurements in the solar wind. ERPAs organize the data by the angle relative to the magnetic field vector direction, in 7.5 degree bins. The energy separation is preserved at the native resolution of the E/q bins. For details, see https://spdf.gsfc.nasa.gov/pub/data/wind/documents/wind_stics_lv2_release_notes_revD.pdf .The Suprathermal Ion Composition Spectrometer (STICS) is a time of flight (TOF) plasma mass spectrometer, capable of identifying mass and mass per charge for incident ions up to 200 keV/e. It uses an electrostatic analyzer to admit ions of a particular energy per charge (E/Q) into the TOF chamber. The E/Q voltage is stepped through 32 values, sitting at each value for approximately 24 sec., to measure ions over the full E/Q range of 6 - 200 keV/e. Ions then pass through a carbon foil and TOF chamber, before finally impacting on a solid-state detector (SSD) for energy measurement. STICS combines these three measurements of E/Q, TOF and residual energy, producing PHA words. This triple-coincidence technique greatly improves the signal to noise ratio in the data. Measurements of E/Q and TOF without residual energy also produce PHA words. These double-coincidence measurements are characterized by better statistics since ions whose energy does not allow them to be registered by the SSD can still be counted in double-coincidence measurements. However, ion identification in double-coincidence measurements are limited to a select number of ions that are well separated in E/Q - TOF space. The STICS instrument provides full 3D velocity distribution functions, through a combination of multiple telescopes and spacecraft spin. The instrument includes 3 separate TOF telescopes that view 3 separate latitude sectors, as shown in Figure 1 (https://spdf.gsfc.nasa.gov/pub/data/wind/documents/wind_stics_lv2_release_notes_revD.pdf). In addition, the WIND spacecraft spins, allowing the 3 telescopes to trace out a nearly 4π steradian viewing area. The longitudinal sectors are shown in Figure 2. The solar direction is in sectors 8-10 while the earthward direction is in sectors 0-2.

Access & Use Information

Public: This dataset is intended for public access and use. License: No license information was provided. If this work was prepared by an officer or employee of the United States government as part of that person's official duties it is considered a U.S. Government Work.

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Dates

Metadata Created Date August 30, 2025
Metadata Updated Date September 19, 2025

Metadata Source

Harvested from NASA Data.json

Additional Metadata

Resource Type Dataset
Metadata Created Date August 30, 2025
Metadata Updated Date September 19, 2025
Publisher NASA Space Physics Data Facility (SPDF) Coordinated Data Analysis Web (CDAWeb) Data Services
Maintainer
Identifier https://doi.org/10.48322/yd5h-ty18
Data Last Modified 2025-09-10
Category Heliophysics
Public Access Level public
Bureau Code 026:00
Metadata Context https://project-open-data.cio.gov/v1.1/schema/catalog.jsonld
Schema Version https://project-open-data.cio.gov/v1.1/schema
Catalog Describedby https://project-open-data.cio.gov/v1.1/schema/catalog.json
Harvest Object Id 20214850-f0ad-4113-ae93-742f41298ca2
Harvest Source Id 58f92550-7a01-4f00-b1b2-8dc953bd598f
Harvest Source Title NASA Data.json
Homepage URL https://doi.org/10.48322/yd5h-ty18
Program Code 026:000
Source Datajson Identifier True
Source Hash eb45d84d7424df36c3345bc1959412de784ae53b920213c72e24ab95b28578bf
Source Schema Version 1.1
Temporal 1995-01-01/1995-01-01

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