Air Force Geophysics Laboratory, Technical Report AFGL-TR-88-0195, 1988.
Scientific Background and Design Specifications for a Near−Earth Heliospheric Imager
B.V. Jackson
University of California, San Diego, La Jolla, CA
Abstract
This report is intended to define the instrument specifications for a heliospheric imager
capable of observing transient, diffuse features in the heliosphere from a spacecraft near 1
AU. These features include coronal mass ejections, co-rotating density enhancements, shock
waves and any other disturbances that can affect the intensity of the electron-scattering
coronal brightness. Our technique of imaging a large portion of the heliosphere using the
HELIOS spacecraft zodiacal-light photometers has shown that it is possible to measure
the structures around a spacecraft and to make good measurements of material in and out
of the ecliptic plane. The HELIOS data show that is is posible to determine the velocityes
and spatial distributions of the large-scale features which propagate into the heliosphere.
The instrumentation may be regarded as a successor to the zodiacal-light photometers
of the HELIOS spacecraft. Such a second-generation instrument based on these principals
could make effective use of in situ solar wind data from spacecraft in the vicinity of the
imager, and would allow study of the effects of heliospheric structure interaction with the
magnetosphere as never before possible. In addition, the imager would allow up to three
days warning of the arrival of a mass ejection at Earth from the Sun.