WP3 Catalogue

This ARRival CATalog (ARRCAT) is a product of working packages 3 and 4 in the EU HELCATS project (2014-2017). It lists predicted arrivals of solar coronal mass ejections at various spacecraft and planets with the STEREO heliospheric imager instruments, between April 2007 - September 2014.

AUTHORS: Christian Moestl, Peter Boakes, University of Graz, Austria; SRI, Austrian Academy of Sciences, Graz, Austria. Based on the HIGeoCAT catalog of CMEs established at RAL Space, UK (Harrison, Davies, Barnes).

Number of events in ARRCAT: 1995 Targets: EARTH-L1, STEREO-A, STEREO-B, VENUS, MESSENGER, MARS, SATURN, ULYSSES, MSL, MAVEN, ROSETTA

This is version: 01 of the catalogue, released 2017-02-28. DOI: 10.6084/m9.figshare.4588324.v1.

The catalogue can be downloaded in several formats (Fixed format ASCII, JSON, VoTable XML).

A new version of the ARRCAT is available at helioforecast.space. This update will be incorporated into the HELCATS table below in due course.

Arrival Date
ID SC SSE_LAUNCH
[ UTC.]
TARGET_NAME SSE_HEEQ_LONG
[ degree.]
TARGET_DELTA
[ spacecraft is west of CME apex. unit]
SSE_SPEED
[ km/s.]
TARGET_SPEED
[ km/s.]
TARGET_ARRIVAL
[ UTC.]
TARGET_DISTANCE
[ AU.]
TARGET_HEEQ_LAT
[ degree.]
TARGET_HEEQ_LONG
[ degree.]
TARGET_PA
[ degree.]
PA_FIT
[ degree.]
PA_N
[ degree.]
PA_S
[ degree.]
PA_CENTER
[ degree.]

catalogue contains the following columns (by default only a subset are shown above but all will be included when you copy or download the data. Use the Show/hide columns option to display the required selection.

ColumnDescriptionUnits
IDFrom HICAT, the unique identifier for the observed CME.
SCFrom HICAT, the HI observing STEREO spacecraft, (A=Ahead or B=Behind)
SSE_LAUNCHFrom HICAT, launch time of the CME on the Sun,UTC.
TARGET_NAMEName of in situ target.
SSE_HEEQ_LONGFrom HICAT, the HEEQ longitude of the CME apex propagation direction,degree.
TARGET_DELTADifference in HEEQ longitude between central CME direction and target location, positive valuesspacecraft is west of CME apex. unit
SSE_SPEEDFrom HICAT, speed of CME apex,km/s.
TARGET_SPEEDCME arrival speed at target location, corrected for SSE shape.km/s.
TARGET_ARRIVALCME arrival time at target location, corrected for SSE shape.UTC.
TARGET_DISTANCETarget distance from Sun, at CME launch time.AU.
TARGET_HEEQ_LATTarget latitude in HEEQ, at CME launch time.degree.
TARGET_HEEQ_LONGTarget longitude in HEEQ, at CME launch time.degree.
TARGET_PAPA of target from HI observing STEREO spacecraft,degree.
PA_FITFrom HICAT, PA along which time-elongation profile is extracted,degree.
PA_NFrom HICAT, northern position angle of CME,degree.
PA_SFrom HICAT, southernmost position angle of CME,degree.
PA_CENTERaverage of pa_n and pa_s,degree.

Heliocentric Earth Equatorial Coordinates (HEEQ): 
Z is the solar rotation axis.
X points from the Sun to the Earth, at the intersection of the solar equator 
           and solar central meridian as seen from Earth.
Y completes the right handed triad and points to solar west.
This system is always centered on Earth, regardless of the spacecraft position.
  
NOTES: 
(1) We have applied the method from Moestl & Davies (2013, Solar Physics) for calculating speeds 
and arrival times of the CMEs modeled with SSEF30 to all CMEs in the HELCATS HIGeoCAT catalog. 
If the SSEF30 circle hits a spacecraft or planet, an entry in ARRCAT is produced.

(2) The position of Venus Express is assumed equal to the location of Venus. Arrivals at Ulysses are 
calculated only around its last ecliptic pass in August 2007. For Rosetta, no arrivals are calculated 
during its deep space hibernation from 2011 June 8 to 2014 January 20. For MESSENGER, MSL 
and MAVEN ARRCAT covers both the cruise and orbit phases of those missions.