This image was taken by IMAGE's EUV imager instrument on August 11, 2000. IMAGE was looking down on the Earth from above the north pole. In this false-color image, you can see a circle in the middle where the Earth is. You can see the Earth's own shadow cast to the bottom left. You can see glowing near the center of the circle - that's the auroral lights. And finally, you can see the tail of the magnetosphere (upper left) being swept back by the solar wind.
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Courtesy of NASA and the IMAGE science team
IMAGE Shows off its Best Stuff!
News story originally written on February 5, 2001
There has been a lot of exciting space news in the last week!
Astronauts are going to visit the space station,
NEAR will land on an asteroid soon and the
IMAGE spacecraft has been showing off its best stuff!
The IMAGE (Imager for Magnetopause -to- Aurora Global Exploration) spacecraft was launched on March 25, 2000. IMAGE has been
studying the Earth's magnetic field. It is the first spacecraft to take whole pictures of the area that surrounds the magnetic field, the magnetosphere. One of those pictures is to the left! The magnetosphere isn't really that color blue, scientists added that color themselves!
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