Radio Plasma Imager (RPI)

• RPI Observations

  • Remote sensing of electron density structure and magnetospheric boundary locations
  • Measure Requirements
  • Density range: 0.1-10**5 cm-3 (determine electron density from inner plasmasphere to magnetopause)
  • Spatial resolution: 500 km (resolve density structures at the magnetopause and plasmapause)

• Storm/substorm Observations

  • Image Time: 3 minute (resolve changes in boundary locations) generating 480 plasmagrams/day

• Quantity Simulated is an RPI ìecho mapî

  • Illustrates spatial location and intensity of return echoes (plotted as ray miss distance)
  • Doppler measurement (not shown) provides key information on boundary motion
  • Echoes from a large scale surface waves on the magnetopause

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