Imaging Observation of the Earth's Plasmasphere and Ionosphere by EUVI of ISS-IMAP on the International Space Station

Abstract

At the end of previous century, we succeeded to image the Earth's plasmasphere from the space by EUV spectral range. Then, spacecraft missions were carried out to image the terrestrial EUV emissions. The extreme ultraviolet imagers (EUVIs) on the international space station (ISS) will be launched in 2012. At the altitude of approximately 400 km, two telescopes direct toward the Earth's limb to look the ionosphere and plasmasphere from the inside-out. One telescope detects the terrestrial EUV emission at O⁺ (83.4 nm), and the other is He⁺ (30.4 nm). These two EUV emissions are solar-scattered by ionized oxygen and helium, respectively. The maximum spatial and time resolutions are 0.1 degree and 1 minute, respectively. Our observation methods will become standard to probe the Earth's upper atmosphere.