Oxygen Atoms in Near-Earth Environment
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Credit
NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center Scientific Visualization Studio
IMAGE/LENA Observes Oxygen Atoms in the near-Earth Environment
Electrically charged oxygen atoms (green) are ejected into the magnetosphere due to heating in the ionosphere. The red 'thermometer' displays the intensity of the solar wind (dynamic pressure) measured by the Geotail spacecraft. The yellow 'thermometer' represents the source intensity or hydrogen counts as measured by IMAGE/LENA.
The oxygen flux increases with the source intensity.