Global Imaging and Radio Remote Sensing of the Magnetosphere

Shing F. Fung and James L. Green
NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, MD, USA

Paper presented at the Workshop on Radiation Belts: Models and Standards,
Belgian Institute for Space Aeronomy, Brussels, Belgium, October 17-20, 1995.


                             Abstract

Many space agencies are at various stages of planning for a new type
of magnetospheric spacecraft carrying instruments capable of imaging
various magnetospheric plasma regimes. These potential missions are
benefiting from recent developments in sensors, optics, electronics
and signal processing techniques. When combined together, the imaging
and remote sensing instruments would make possible an exciting
capability to view directly the global distribution, transport and
energization of both cold and hot magnetospheric plasmas. Global
magnetospheric imaging will greatly extend our knowledge drawn from
in-situ sampling of the vast magnetospheric plasma regions over the
past three decades. Global imaging can be accomplished on time scales
varying from a few to tens of minutes, allowing the observations to
be easily placed in the storm and substorm context. For example, while
the energetic neutral atom imaging will yield information directly on
the energetic particles found in the ring current and radiation belts,
the radio plasma sounding technique will monitor the variations in the
geomagnetic field caused by the storm-time ring current, which in turn
reflects the radiation belt dynamics. Therefore, long term
magnetospheric imaging will lead to new insight for understanding and
modeling of the structure and dynamics of both the high and low energy
magnetospheric plasmas, such as the radiation belts.