Birmingham University (Professor James Sayers and J H Wager) mounted an experiment on Ariel III with two objectives:
The experiment measured ionospheric electron densities based upon the detection of permittivity changes in a parallel plate capacitor. Electron temperatures were determined based on the comparison of differential currents to identical probes.
One result from the experiment was to investigate the magnetic shell alignment of the mid-latitude electron density trough and to study the variations of such troughs with time of day, season and magnetic activity. This concluded that the low-latitude boundaries of the troughs in the northern and southern hemispheres were more precisely aligned on the same magnetic shell than are the trough minima. This confirmed the existing magnetospheric convection model.
