Physics – Plasma Physics
Scientific paper
Nov 2004
adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2004aps..dppbm2003r&link_type=abstract
American Physical Society, 46th Annual Meeting of the Division of Plasma Physics, 15-19 November, 2004, Savannah, GA. MEETING I
Physics
Plasma Physics
Scientific paper
Many space plasmas contain energetic singly-charged ions immersed in a cold gas of neutral atoms and molecules. When the energetic ions undergo charge-exchange collisions with the background cold neutrals, they become energetic neutral atoms (ENAs). Thus the space plasma Â"glowsÂ" in the ENAs which escape the plasma on straight-line trajectories. Properly designed 2-dimentsional particle telescopes that deflect ions using electro-static fields become ENA Â"camerasÂ". Such cameras are now operating on the NASA IMAGE spacecraft in orbit around Earth and the NASA/ESA Cassini spacecraft in orbit around Saturn. They are providing all-sky global images of the singly-charged trapped ion populations of these planets with time resolution of a few minutes. Each pixel contains an energy spectra from 10 to 200 keV/nucleon of the major singly-charged ions (protons and O^+), thus providing a quantitative diagnostic of energetic ion injection, acceleration, and transport. ENA imaging has now taken its place as a fundamental tool in magnetospheric research, and new missions are moving forward to apply ENA imaging to the heliosphere itself (the domain of the solar wind) and its termination ˜100 AU from the Sun where it interacts with the local interstellar gas.
C:son Brandt Pontus
DeMajistre Robert
Mitchell Donald G.
Roelof Edmond C.
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