Journal of Astronomy and Space Sciences

The Korean Space Science Society (한국우주과학회)
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Do Inner Planets Modulate the Space Environment of the Earth?

  • Kim, Jung-Hee (Department of Astronomy and Atmospheric Sciences, BK21 plus team, Kyungpook National University) ;
  • Chang, Heon-Young (Department of Astronomy and Atmospheric Sciences, BK21 plus team, Kyungpook National University)
  • Received : 2014.02.03
  • Accepted : 2014.02.22
  • Published : 2014.03.15
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Abstract

Variabilities in the solar wind cause disturbances throughout the heliosphere on all temporal and spatial scales, which leads to changeable space weather. As a view of space weather forecasting, in particular, it is important to know direct and indirect causes modulating the space environment near the Earth in advance. Recently, there are discussions on a role of the interaction of the solar wind with Mercury in affecting the solar wind velocity in the Earth's neighborhood during its inferior conjunctions. In this study we investigate a question of whether other parameters describing the space environment near the Earth are modulated by the inner planets' wake, by examining whether the interplanetary magnetic field and the proton density in the solar wind observed by the Advanced Composition Explorer (ACE) spacecraft, and the geomagnetic field via the Dst index and Auroral Electrojet index (AE index) are dependent upon the relative position of the inner planets. We find there are indeed apparent variations. For example, the mean variations of the geomagnetic fields measured in the Earth's neighborhood apparently have varied with a timescale of about 10 to 25 days. Those variations in the parameters we have studied, however, turn out to be a part of random fluctuations and have nothing to do with the relative position of inner planets. Moreover, it is found that variations of the proton density in the solar wind, the Dst index, and the AE index are distributed with the Gaussian distribution. Finally, we point out that some of properties in the behavior of the random fluctuation are to be studied.

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