Interstellar Boundary Explorer (IBEX) [Paperback]

The Interstellar Boundary Explorer (IBEX) is a remarkable mission of exploration and discovery. IBEX is currently producing the first global images of the heliosphere’s interaction with the local interstellar medium—these images provide an entirely new framework for understanding the relationship between our heliosphere and the galactic environment. This book comprises a set of papers that describe the IBEX science, instruments, and mission and put these in the context of the existing knowledge of the interstellar interaction at the time of the launch. The book sets the stage for research that will be based on data from the IBEX mission. We sincerely hope that future researchers, authors and students will use this information to help in their studies.

Foreword.- Acknowledgements.- IBEXInterstellar Boundary Explorer.- The IBEX Flight Segment.- The Interstellar Boundary Explorer High Energy (IBEX-Hi) Neutral Atom Imager.- The IBEX Background Monitor.- The IBEX-Lo Sensor.- Diagnosing the Neutral Interstellar Gas Flow at 1 AU with IBEX-Lo.- IBEX Backgrounds and Signal-to-Noise Ratio.- The Interstellar Boundary Explorer Science Operations Center.- The Galactic Environment of the Sun: Interstellar Material Inside and Outside of the Heliosphere.- Physical Processes in the Outer Heliosphere.- Physics of the Solar WindLocal Interstellar Medium Interaction: Role of Magnetic Fields.- Kinetic-Gasdynamic Modeling of the Heliospheric Interface.- IBEX Education and Public Outreach.

The Interstellar Boundary Explorer (IBEX) is a small explorer mission with the sole, focused science objective to discover the global interaction between the solar wind and the interstellar medium. IBEX is designed to achieve this objective by answering four fundamental science questions:

What is the global strength and structure of the termination shock?

How are energetic protons accelerated at the termination shock?<lÓ$