IBEX Orbit Visualization

  • Released Friday, October 3rd, 2008
  • Updated Friday, August 25th, 2023 at 12:00AM
  • ID: 3514

The Interstellar Boundary EXplorer (IBEX) mission will observe the boundary between the heliosphere and the interstellar medium from a location near the Earth. The mission will measure the flux of hydrogen Energetic Neutral Atoms (ENAs) which can be directed towards the Sun by an interaction with the heliosheath.

In this visualization, we see the orbit of the spacecraft orbit (green) in relation to the Earth, the orbit of the Moon (gray), and Sun.

For more information, visit the IBEX Mission Project Page at Southwest Research Institute which is managing the mission. We also have additional video outlining the mission (link).

A movie tour showing the orbit of IBEX (green) around the Earth and its relationship to the Moon's orbit (grey).

The movie opens with a view of the Earth with the Sun in the distance.

The movie opens with a view of the Earth with the Sun in the distance.

The camera pulls out from the Earth, revealing the IBEX spacecraft (the small gold and grey hexagonal object on the left) and its orbit (green). The Moon is passing through the foreground.

The camera pulls out from the Earth, revealing the IBEX spacecraft (the small gold and grey hexagonal object on the left) and its orbit (green). The Moon is passing through the foreground.

The camera pulls out further, to observe the full IBEX orbit.

The camera pulls out further, to observe the full IBEX orbit.

The camera moves above the Moon's orbital plane to look down on the relationship of the orbit of IBEX to the orbit of the Moon.

The camera moves above the Moon's orbital plane to look down on the relationship of the orbit of IBEX to the orbit of the Moon.

Credits

Please give credit for this item to:
NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center Scientific Visualization Studio

Missions

This visualization is related to the following missions:

Series

This visualization can be found in the following series:

Datasets used in this visualization

SSCweb ephemerides (A.K.A. SSCweb)
Ephemeris NASA/GSFC Space Physics Data Facility

Satellite ephemerides

Dataset can be found at: http://sscweb.gsfc.nasa.gov

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