The Finding and Statistical Properties of Bursty Enhancements: Macao Science Satellite‐1 Observations

Abstract

Earth's inner radiation belt contains electrons from 10 to 100 s keV and its dynamic has been studied for decades. Recently, the launch of Macao Science Satellite‐1 (MSS‐1) provided new opportunities to investigate electrons in the inner radiation belt with high temporal, energy, and angular resolution. Based on the measurements of MSS‐1, we report bursty enhancements characterized with dispersionless electron enhancements from to keV for the first time in this study. MSS‐1 data for 1 year were used to investigate the properties of bursty enhancements. Bursty enhancements were found to preferentially occur with magnetic storms but those events in quiet‐time were nonnegligible. Statistical results also reveal that bursty enhancements mainly distributed at 1.6, the occurrence rate of storm‐time bursty enhancements increases with larger L , while the occurrence rate of quiet‐time bursty enhancements peaks at L  = 2.2. In the azimuthal direction, both storm‐time and quiet‐time bursty enhancements are distributed with higher occurrence rates at dawn and dusk sides. The finding of bursty enhancements shows a new phenomenon in the inner radiation belt, which might be helpful for further understanding of the inner radiation belt.