Measuring Pickup Ions in Our Solar System

Poster Image
Event poster; details follow in description
Poster Session
A
Poster Number
04
Project Author(s)
Samaan Abdul Aziz
Institution
Southwestern Oregon Community College | OrION Internship - SOCC
Project Description

Interstellar space contains sparse amounts of hydrogen, helium and other elements. These elements are called the interstellar medium. It is estimated that 90% is hydrogen and 8% is helium. Our solar system encounters the interstellar medium as it rotates around the center of the Milky Way. Some of it is drawn into and captured by our solar system. Often, after entering our solar system, the elements become ionized. This occurs when these interstellar elements interact with the charged particles, or plasma, emitted from our Sun. This fast, moving plasma is called the solar wind. The resulting, ionized interstellar medium elements are called pickup ions. Thereafter, because of the motion of the Sun relative to the interstellar medium, the ionized elements gather in cone-like distribution at or near 1 AU. Our project analyzes helium pickup ions near 1 AU. The project’s purpose is to refine and predict the location and spatial distribution of the helium pickup ion focusing cone. To this end, we analyze helium counts in selected intervals from November-December 2023 observed during an HPCA survey of Earth local interstellar environment. This project builds on previous work of Cejay Morgan’s 2023 SCORE project and we include a comparison of our findings to his from the previous year.