MI will use innovative techniques to provide the first moving images of changes in Earth's magnetosphere as it responds to highly variable injections of plasma from the Sun. MI will observe emissions of energetic neutral atoms and extreme and far ultraviolet photons to produce simultaneous images of various components of the magnetosphere: the ring current, the inner plasma sheet, the plasmasphere, aurora, and the geocorona. This will enable researchers to visualize and identify the strength and nature of the connections among these parts of the magnetosphere, especially as they change during geomagnetic storms and fluctuations in the speed and force of the solar wind. The shape of major features will be available to compare with theoretical models and with shapes inferred from in-situ measurements.
The global images obtained will be related to local observations in order to:
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Solar Connections: A Science Initiative for NASA Space Physics
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