The SWOOPS ion spectrometer Los Alamos National Laboratory
SWOOPS Instrument Page SWOOPS stands for "Solar Wind
Observations Over the Poles of the Sun". This experiment onboard
Ulysses is basically making a map of the solar plasma within the
heliosphere . This plasma that flows from the Sun is often
called the solar wind. You see, the SWOOPS experiment measured
the solar plasma as Ulysses flew past Jupiter and it is
measuring the solar plasma in its special orbit around the Sun.
This will give us the best 3-D map of the solar plasma (solar
wind) within heliosphere that we have ever had! SWOOPS is
actually made up of two instruments, the ion spectrometer and
the electron spectrometer. The ion spectrometer measures the
positive ions within the solar wind and the electron
spectrometer measures the electrons within the solar wind.
SWOOPS measurements determine the speed, direction, temperature
and density of the solar wind flow. The most important
contribution from SWOOPS is that this instrument is helping us
to