NOAA / Space Weather Prediction Center

STEREO header with logos


Introduction

Real Time Data

# Under construction

More STEREO Links

* Leaving SWPC web site

STEREO Beacon News and Announcements

December 16 , 2008: SWPC is now making 3 day, 7 day, and 30 day plots of STEREO IMPACT energetic particle data available.  A new feature on the 30 day plots is the dashed vertical line indicating data from 27 days prior to the plot generation time.  This is convenient for comparing corotating structures from one rotation to the next.  Similar plots for the magnetic field data are expected soon.

Introduction

The NOAA Space Weather Prediction Center now provides near-real-time data from the NASA STEREO mission. The STEREO mission consists of two spacecraft that are in heliocentric orbits leading and lagging the Earth. Each spacecraft provides a unique observing vantage point, and taken together, they enable a stereoscopic view of the Sun, solar activity, and the solar environment between the Sun and Earth. The STEREO mission studies the Sun and heliosphere with 4 suites of instruments. This website brings you data from two of the instruments, the PLAsma and SupraThermal Ion Composition (PLASTIC) Instrument and the In-situ Measurements of Particles and CME Transients (IMPACT) Instrument. These two instruments provide measurements of the solar wind plasma, particles, magnetic field, and solar energetic protons, all quantities that are of significant use in forecasting space weather.

The near-real-time data, known as the Space Weather Beacon, from STEREO is a compressed, binned, subset of the full science data. The beacon data are broadcast continuously, and if no ground station is listening, the data will not be available until the full science data is dumped. The science data comes down once per day. Note: NOAA is not the general provider of STEREO data, the NASA STEREO project is. If you want STEREO data that is not available on this website, you must retrieve it from the STEREO project. More information is available here. Use the STEREO Science Center link on the left.

There is image data, from the Sun Earth Connection Coronal and Heliospheric Investigation (SECCHI) being downlinked in the Space Weather Beacon. The image data is being made available to forecasters, but not in a way which would be easily accessible over the internet. It is expected that users will use the STEREO Science Center to view the real-time image data by following the SSC link to the left.

The four STEREO instrument suites and the data they will supply are:

  • PLASTIC* - Solar Wind Plasma
  • IMPACT* - Energetic Particles, Magnetic Field Vectors
  • SECCHI* - EUV Imager, Coronagraphs, Heliospheric Imagers
  • SWAVES* - Radio Burst Tracker

Last Page Update: April 11, 2008
Questions and comments concerning these pages or the operational use of STEREO Beacon data can be addressed to: Doug.Biesecker@noaa.gov.