Explorer: IMAGE (MIDEX 1)

IMAGE (Imager for Magnetopause to Aurora Global Exploration) uses neutral atom, ultraviolet, and radio imaging techniques to identify the dominant mechanisms for injecting plasma into the magnetosphere on substorm and magnetic storm time scales, determine the directly driven response of the magnetosphere to solar wind changes; and, discover how and where magnetospheric plasmas are energized, transported, and subsequently lost during substorms and magnetic storms. It has 5 instruments

• Low-Energy Neutral Atom (LENA) imager
• Medium-Energy Neutral Atom (MENA) imager
• High-Energy Neutral Atom (HENA) imager
• Extreme Ultraviolet Imager (EUV)
• Far Ultraviolet Imager (FUV)
• Radio Plasma Imaging (RPI)

The IMAGE observatory is a spin-stabilized spacecraft that measures 2.25 meters in diameter and 1.52 meters in height and weighs 494 kg (including instruments).

The mission og IMAGE ended in January 2006, when the spacecraft suffered a power subsystem failure.

Science highlights include:

• Confirmations: plasma plume creation, post-midnight peak in storm plasmas, the neutral solar wind, terrestrial origin of geospace storm plasmas and continuous nature of magnetic reconnection.
• Discoveries: plasmaspheric shoulders and notches, proton auroras in unexpected places, surprisingly slow plasmasphere rotation, a hot oxygen geocorona and a secondary interstellar neutral atom stream
• Resolutions: the source of kilometric continuum radiation, solar- wind and auroral intensity effects on ionospheric out flow and the relationship between proton and electron auroras during geospace storms.
    

References:

• IMAGE Homepage

Last update: 27.09.2009
Contact: gunter.krebs@skyrocket.de
© Gunter Dirk Krebs