IMAGE - A Global Look at the Magnetosphere

Chris Gurgiolo, Bitterroot Basic Research

The launch of the IMAGE satellite in March of 2000 has given us a view of 
the magnetosphere never seen before.  The experiments carried on IMAGE are 
designed to provide a global picture of the magnetosphere from the subsolar 
magnetopause to the inner plasmasheet on time scales commensurate with the 
known dynamics of the region. For the first time we have been able to 
observe the how the magnetosphere responds as a whole to geomagnetic 
activity and how various regions are coupled to one another to allow for 
the transfer and dissipation of energy. In this talk we will cover several 
aspects of the IMAGE mission including: the instrumentation; first results;
surprises; and the challenges associated with dealing with remote sensing 
data in the magnetosphere.

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Montana State University Physics Colloquium, 3 May 2002