A telescopic and microscopic view of a magnetospheric substorm on 31 March 2001

D.N. Baker, R.E. Ergun, J.L. Burch, J.-M. Jahn, P.W. Daly, R. Friedel, 
G.D. Reeves, T.A. Fritz, and D.G. Mitchell


On March 31, 2001 at ~0635 UT when the CLUSTER constellation was near local
midnight and at ~4RE geocentric distance, sensors observed an energetic electron
injection event associated with a strong (AE~1200 nT) magnetospheric substorm.
Geostationary spacecraft 1991-080 located at ~20 LT also saw an abrupt electron
injection event at 0630UTand FASTspacecraft instruments (~19 LT) detected a
powerful set of magnetic field, electric field, and energetic plasma signatures
at ~0637 UT. The energetic neutral atom imaging experiments onboard the IMAGE
spacecraft detected an injection of substormproduced ions in the pre-midnight
sector commencing at ~0630 UT. Electron injection signatures at the four
separate CLUSTER locations allow us to infer the location, speed, and direction
of the substorm injection boundary. Hence, the CLUSTER (and IMAGE)
telescope-microscope combination is a long-sought realization of a major
magnetospheric research objective and shows the power of localized multipoint
measurements from CLUSTER.

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Geophysical Research Letters, 29 (18), 1862, doi:10.1029/2001GL014491, 2002.