POYNTING FLUX AND KINETIC ENERGY FLUX DERIVED FROM THE FAST SATELLITE A Major Qualifying Project submitted to the Faculty of Worcester Polytechnic Institute In partial fulfillment of the requirements for the Degree of Bachelor of Science by Nicole Cahill Sebastian Musielak 5th March 2010 Project sponsored by SRI International Advisors: Dr. Russell Cosgrove, SRI International Dr. Hasan Bahcivan, SRI International Provost John A. Orr, Worcester Polytechnic Institute CONTENTS Table of Figures ............................................................................................................................................................................................................... 4 Table of Tables ................................................................................................................................................................................................................. 6 1. Abstract ..................................................................................................................................................................................................................... 7 2. Executive Summary ............................................................................................................................................................................................. 8 3. Introduction .......................................................................................................................................................................................................... 11 4. Background ........................................................................................................................................................................................................... 12 4.1 The Atmosphere ............................................................................................................................................................................................... 12 4.2 The Aurora .......................................................................................................................................................................................................... 14 4.3 The Fast Satellite .............................................................................................................................................................................................. 16 4.4 NSF Proposal ...................................................................................................................................................................................................... 20 4.5 SRI International .............................................................................................................................................................................................. 22 4.6 Reference Frames ............................................................................................................................................................................................ 22 4.6.1 Time Frame ................................................................................................................................................................................................ 23 4.6.2 Spatial Frames .......................................................................................................................................................................................... 25 5. Project Explanation and Goals ..................................................................................................................................................................... 33 5.1 Problem Statement ......................................................................................................................................................................................... 33 5.1.1 Electric Field Variability ...................................................................................................................................................................... 33 5.1.2 Earth’s Magnetic Field .......................................................................................................................................................................... 33 5.1.3 Poynting Flux ............................................................................................................................................................................................ 33 5.1.4 Kinetic Energy Flux ................................................................................................................................................................................ 34 5.1.5 Coordinate Systems ............................................................................................................................................................................... 34 5.2 General Circulation Models ......................................................................................................................................................................... 34 5.3 Goals ....................................................................................................................................................................................................................... 35 6. Methodology and Implementation............................................................................................................................................................. 36 6.1 Calculation of Poynting Flux ....................................................................................................................................................................... 36 6.1.1 Viewing Raw Data Using Satellite Data Tool .............................................................................................................................. 38 6.1.2 Downloading Raw Data Using Satellite Data Tool .................................................................................................................. 39 6.1.3 Viewing Summary Plots from Berkeley Website ..................................................................................................................... 39 6.1.4 Downloading Summary Data from Berkeley Web Archives .............................................................................................. 41 6.1.5 Loading Data Into MATLAB................................................................................................................................................................ 42 6.1.6 Interpolating Positional Data for Fields Data ............................................................................................................................ 43 6.1.7 Converting Positional Data into Geographic Coordinates ................................................................................................... 43 6.1.8 Exporting Processed Data using SDT and IDL .......................................................................................................................... 45 6.1.9 Converting Fields Data into Geographic Coordinates ........................................................................................................... 45 2 | P a g e 6.1.10 Finding the IGRF Model ..................................................................................................................................................................... 46 6.1.11 Calculating Poynting Vector and Poynting Flux .................................................................................................................... 46 6.2 Calculation of Kinetic Energy Flux ........................................................................................................................................................... 47 7. Data and Results ................................................................................................................................................................................................. 48 7.1 Given Data ........................................................................................................................................................................................................... 48 7.2 Correlating Data and Time Conversions ............................................................................................................................................... 55 7.3 Transformed Positional Data ..................................................................................................................................................................... 57 7.4 The IGRF Model ................................................................................................................................................................................................ 60 7.5 Poynting Vectors .............................................................................................................................................................................................. 63 7.6 Kinetic Energy Flux ......................................................................................................................................................................................... 74 7.7 Summary of Data .............................................................................................................................................................................................