2016.A.3.1. AeroCube 6 Observations of Small Scale Latitudinal Structure in Energetic Electron Precipitation

Author(s)

Bernard Blake (1)
Paul OBrien (1)

The Aerospace Corporation, United States of America

Session

A.3

Keywords

microbursts, electron precipitation

Abstract

We provide evidence of ~30-60 km spatial structures that persist for more than 60 seconds in low altitude precipitation of ~50 keV electrons. We use observations from dosimeters on the AeroCube-6 mission to separate spatial and temporal variations. We present temporal dose rate profiles that are very similar at the two vehicles, but offset in time by the expected lag given the spacecraft separation and speed. We interpret these structures as spatial, and propose that they are the result of multiple microbursts that have experienced bounce phase mixing and differential drift over a small fraction of a drift orbit before reaching the spacecraft.