Imaging the Magnetosphere
Location
Yosemite National Park
Start Date
2-10-2014 6:25 PM
End Date
2-10-2014 6:55 PM
Description
In this talk I present a review of inner magnetospheric (plasmaspheric and ring current) imaging results from two missions: the Imager for Magnetopause-to-Aurora Global Exploration (IMAGE), and Two Wide-angle Imaging Neutral-atom Spectrometers (TWINS). The extreme ultraviolet (EUV) imager onboard IMAGE revolutionized our knowledged and understanding of the Earth's plasmasphere, both by revealing new global density features, and confirming decades-old hypotheses about how cold plasma dynamics is controlled by both the solar wind and magnetosphere-ionosphere (M-I) coupling. TWINS is the first stereoscopic magnetospheric imaging mission, performing simultaneous energetic neutral atom (ENA) imaging from two widely-separated Molniya orbits on two different spacecraft and enabling discovery of previously unknown global dependences of ion pitch angle. Building on results from IMAGE and TWINS, I show an example of how terrestrial electrodynamics may be applied to the study of the interchange instability in the plasmasphere of Saturn. I also discuss prospects for truly global imaging of the entire magnetosphere, to determine causal relationships between solar wind changes and inner magnetospheric responses.
Imaging the Magnetosphere
Yosemite National Park
In this talk I present a review of inner magnetospheric (plasmaspheric and ring current) imaging results from two missions: the Imager for Magnetopause-to-Aurora Global Exploration (IMAGE), and Two Wide-angle Imaging Neutral-atom Spectrometers (TWINS). The extreme ultraviolet (EUV) imager onboard IMAGE revolutionized our knowledged and understanding of the Earth's plasmasphere, both by revealing new global density features, and confirming decades-old hypotheses about how cold plasma dynamics is controlled by both the solar wind and magnetosphere-ionosphere (M-I) coupling. TWINS is the first stereoscopic magnetospheric imaging mission, performing simultaneous energetic neutral atom (ENA) imaging from two widely-separated Molniya orbits on two different spacecraft and enabling discovery of previously unknown global dependences of ion pitch angle. Building on results from IMAGE and TWINS, I show an example of how terrestrial electrodynamics may be applied to the study of the interchange instability in the plasmasphere of Saturn. I also discuss prospects for truly global imaging of the entire magnetosphere, to determine causal relationships between solar wind changes and inner magnetospheric responses.