ION TEMPERATURE IMAGING OF THE EARTH'S MAGNETOSPHERE

With the Medium Energy Neutral Atom (MENA) instrument aboard the 
IMAGE spacecraft, it is possible to remotely measure the ion 
temperature of the terrestrial magnetosphere during periods of 
strong geomagnetic activity [Scime et al., 2002]. Using a 
superposed-epoch analysis of multiple storm intervals to accumulate 
statistically significant neutral atom fluxes during periods of weak 
geomagnetic activity and a novel image summing algorithm to account 
for variations in viewing geometry, we have been able to image the 
ion temperature structure of the terrestrial magnetosphere as a 
function of time in a geomagnetic storm. We have averaged nearly 
thirty geomagnetic storms to produce an average ion temperature map 
as a function of storm phase. The details of the ion temperature 
analysis process as well as results from the storm time ion 
temperature imaging analysis will be presented.