Multispacecraft observations from the Sun to the Earth

HARRA, L.K.; SMITH, A.; FAZAKERLEY, A.N.; MANDRINI, C.H.; MATTHEWS, S.A.

Noordwijk, Holanda

Simposio; 39th ESLAB Symposium: Trends in Space Science and Cosmic Vision 2020; 2005

We currently have the capability of studying the Sun-Earth connection from a number of space missions, which cover remote sensing, and in situ measurements. While these provide us with a crucial insight into the impact of ejections of plasma from the Sun on the Earth they are largely made from instruments on different spacecraft that provide only one view point and/or sample only at one point. We describe two examples of ejections of mass from the Sun. The rst is a small source region. In this case the orientation and helicity of the magnetic cloud matched that of the pre-eruption solar source. In the second example the source is a large solar are from a complex active region in the declining phase of the solar cycle. We make use of the multi-spacecraft datasets from SOHO, TRACE, Cluster, ACE, WIND and GOES to track the coronal mass ejection. In this case also, we nd that the magnetic eld orientations have changed little from their solar coronal con gurations. We discuss what is currently lacking in our knowledge and how the imminient Solar-B, STEREO and Solar Dynamics Observatory Missions will improve this. We then describe what we can expect to see from the future encounter mission, Solar Orbiter, when we will have the rst opportunity to link in-situ and remote sensing observations from a single platform close to the Sun. Finally we will look further into the future, and describe a concept for how many small spacecraft with different viewpoints of the Sun could make the crucial leap forward in our understanding of the Sun-Earth system.