Ionospheric ion streams at altitudes below 14 Re

The properties of ionospheric ion streams flowing away from earth into the magnetotail are studied between 2 and 14 Re. General agreement is found between these observatories and those made already at lower and larger distances. It is shown that at altitudes lower than 10 Re the flow of these ions is dominated by the dynamics of the source region; sometimes the satellite location is well suited to determine the flow pattern of the ions and the source altitude. The data presented here indicate that at higher distances from the earth, the ExB/B-squared filter organizes the streams according to their parallel velocity, so that no source properties can be derived by looking at single cases. 14 references