The normal directions and shape of the magnetopause

The minimum variance and tangential discontinuity analyses are used to find the normal directions of the magnetopause using 550 crossings from ISEE 1 and 2, AMPTE/IRM, and IMP 8 satellites. Then, the average shape of the magnetopause is studied by using two-region fit procedure. These studies show: (i) most of the crossings are reasonably characterized as tangential discontinuity; (ii) there does appear to be east-west and north-south asymmetry in the shape of the magnetopause; (iii) the magnetopause in the equatorial region is swept back from the vacuum location for both northward and southward IMF, which means that the simple single conic section used in previous fits may not be appropriate to the entire shape of the magnetopause, especially at the nightside.