Four spacecraft measurements of the quasiperpendicular terrestrial bow shock: Orientation and motion

Measurements of the magnetic field at the four Cluster spacecraft, typically separated by ∼600 km, during bow shock crossings allow the orientation and motion of this structure to be estimated. Results from 48 clean and steady quasiperpendicular crossings during 2000 and 2001, covering local times from 0600 to 1700, reveal the bow shock normal to be remarkably stable, under a wide range of steady upstream conditions. Nearly 80% of normals lay within 10° of those of two bow shock models, suggesting that the timing method is accurate to around 10°, and possibly better, and therefore that four spacecraft timings are a useful estimator of the orientation and motion of quasiperpendicular bow shocks. These results show that models provide a good approximation to the bow shock surface and can therefore be used when four spacecraft data are not available. In contrast, only 19% of magnetic coplanarity vectors were within 10° of the model normal. The mean deviation of the coplanarity vector from the timing‐derived normal for shocks with θ_BN < 70° was 22 ± 4°. Typical shock velocities were ∼35 km s⁻¹, although the fastest measured shock was traveling outbound at nearly 150 km s⁻¹.