SH21D-01:
Interstellar Mapping and Acceleration Probe (IMAP) – Its Time Has Come!
Tuesday, 16 December 2014: 8:00 AM
Nathan Schwadron, University of New Hampshire, Durham, NH, United States, Justin Christophe Kasper, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI, United States, Richard A Mewaldt, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, CA, United States, Eberhard Moebius, Univ New Hampshire, Durham, NH, United States, Merav Opher, Boston University, Boston, MA, United States, Harlan E. Spence, University of New Hampshire Main Campus, Durham, NH, United States and Thomas Zurbuchen, Univ Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI, United States
Abstract:
Our piece of cosmic real-estate, the heliosphere, is the domain of all human existence -- an astrophysical case-history of the successful evolution of life in a habitable system. By exploring our global heliosphere and its myriad interactions, we develop key physical knowledge of the interstellar interactions that influence exoplanetary habitability as well as the distant history and destiny of our solar system and world. IBEX was the first mission to explore the global heliosphere and in concert with Voyager 1 and Voyager 2 is discovering a fundamentally new and uncharted physical domain of the outer heliosphere. The enigmatic IBEX ribbon is an unanticipated discovery demonstrating that much of what we know or think we understand about the outer heliosphere needs to be revised. The next quantum leap enabled by IMAP will open new windows on the frontier of Heliophysics at a time when the space environment is rapidly evolving. IMAP with 100 times the combined resolution and sensitivity of IBEX will discover the substructure of the IBEX ribbon and will reveal in unprecedented resolution global maps of our heliosphere. The remarkable synergy between IMAP, Voyager 1 and Voyager 2 will remain for at least the next decade as Voyager 1 pushes further into the interstellar domain and Voyager 2 moves through the heliosheath. Voyager 2 moves outward in the vicinity of the IBEX ribbon and its plasma measurements will create singular opportunities for discovery in the context of IMAP’s global measurements. IMAP, like ACE before it, will be a keystone of the Heliophysics System Observatory by providing comprehensive cosmic ray, energetic particle, pickup ion, suprathermal ion, neutral atom, solar wind, solar wind heavy ion, and magnetic field observations to diagnose the changing space environment and understand the fundamental origins of particle acceleration. Thus, IMAP is a mission whose time has come. IMAP is the highest ranked next Solar Terrestrial Probe in the Decadal Survey, is ready to be implemented and explores fundamental outstanding problems in Heliophysics concerning the outer boundaries of our solar system, the physics of interstellar interactions with the solar wind, the origin and physics of the IBEX ribbon, and the fundamental origins particle acceleration throughout the heliosphere.
