'First Light' from the IMAGE Spacecraft 

James Burch
Southwest Research Institute
                
The Imager for Magnetosphere-to-Aurora Global Exploration (IMAGE) is the 
first mission dedicated to imaging the Earth's magnetosphere. It uses new 
ultraviolet, neutral atom, and radio plasma imaging techniques to image 
plasmas and energetic particles throughout the inner magnetosphere at time 
scales of a few minutes, which allows it to track the global development of 
geomagnetic storms. Early results of the mission include the confirmation 
of the theory of plasmaspheric tails, the discovery  of neutral atoms from 
the solar wind, observation of the interaction between the cold plasma of 
the plasmasphere and the energetic ions of the ring current, and the first 
measurement of the global dynamics of the proton aurora. In addition it has 
demonstrated for the first time the remote radio sounding of plasmas in the 
magnetosphere. 

_______________
Goddard Space Flight Center Scientific Colloquium, February 23, 2001, Greenbelt, MD