Sun ID: 3050

Tour of the Plasmasphere and Plasmapause

Visualizations by Tom Bridgman Released on December 15, 2004

The plasmasphere is a region of ionospheric plasma which co-rotates with the Earth, carried by the magnetic field lines. This plasma tends to be colder (i.e. the ions have lower average energy) than the outer region of the magnetosphere. The plasmapause marks the outer boundary of this region. This visualization is a simple fly-around tour of the plasmapause (green) in a relatively quiescent state. For this visualization, the 3-dimensional structure was constructed from the equatorial profile of the plasmapause (as measured by IMAGE/EUV data) by extending the region along field lines of a simple dipole field.

Visualization Credits

Tom Bridgman (Global Science and Technology, Inc.): Lead Animator
James W. Williams (GST): Animator
Greg Shirah (NASA/GSFC): Animator
Jerald Goldstein (SwRI): Scientist

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

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https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/3050

Mission:
IMAGE

Data Used:

IMAGE/EUV

2003/10/29

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Note: While we identify the data sets used in these visualizations, we do not store any further details nor the data sets themselves on our site.

This item is part of this series:
Halloween 2003 Solar Storms Revisited

Goddard TV Tape:
G2004-071

Keywords:
SVS >> Plasmasphere
DLESE >> Space science
SVS >> Plasmapause
SVS >> Space Weather
SVS >> For Educators
SVS >> Space Science
SVS >> Earth Science >> El Nino
NASA Science >> Sun