ENA IMAGING – SEEING THE INVISIBLE.docVIP

ENA IMAGING – SEEING THE INVISIBLE P. C. Brandt, D. G. Mitchell, E. C. Roelof, S. M. Krimigis, C. P. Paranicas, B. H. Mauk, J. Saur, R. DeMajistre ABSTRACT We review the technique and history of Energetic Neutral Atom (ENA) imaging of space plasma, along with recent results from international collaborations: The ENA imaging results from the IMAGE mission at Earth, and from the Cassini mission at Jupiter and Saturn. Both IMAGE and Cassini carry ENA cameras built at JHU/APL. The HENA imager on board the IMAGE mission provides global images of the ring current around the Earth and reveals the dynamics of the electrical coupling between the ring current and the ionosphere. The INCA imager on board Cassini returns ENA images from the enormous magnetosphere around Saturn, giving unprecedented insight into the dynamics of the hot plasma and its interaction with neutral gas and Saturn’s moons. The review ends with a brief description of ENA imaging of the heliospheric boundary and the future projects utilizing ENA instrumentation. INTRODUCTION Encased in the Earth’s magnetic field is an enormous region filled with trapped electrons and ions, having energies ranging from those of the low-energy thermal plasma (energies on the order of a few electron Volts (eV)) to those of the high-energy, radiation belts (energies ranging upward from 100 keV). This region has been termed the magnetosphere and exists due to the pressure balance between the geomagnetic field and the solar wind, an ever-present flow of magnetized plasma from the Sun penetrating the entire solar system. In general, magnetized bodies, such as Earth are not the only bodies that interact strongly with the solar wind. The ionospheres of weakly magnetized planets, such as Venus and Mars, set up currents that partially deflect the solar wind flow around the planet. For a more complete review of planetary magnetospheres see Paranicas (this issue). Figure 1 summarizes what we know about the structure of the Terrestri