SAMPEX Observations of Anomalous Cosmic Rays Trapped in the Magnetosphere

Abstract

The Solar, Anomalous, and Magnetospheric Particle Explorer (SAMPEX), launched July 3, 1992, into an 82 degree inclination, low-Earth orbit (670 x 520 km), is the first of NASA's new line of Small Explorer (SMEX) missions. SAMPEX has been described in U.S. STEP News, Vol. 1, No. 6, December 1991. The spacecraft carries four instruments designed to measure the composition of energetic nuclei and electrons over a broad range in energy and intensity, including particles of solar, interplanetary, galactic, and magnetospheric origin. A detailed description of the spacecraft and these instruments is given in the May 1993 issue of Geoscience and Remote Sensing. Of the many studies that SAMPEX has conducted during its first year of operation, one of the most interesting has been of a trapped radiation belt encircling the Earth that contains high-energy N, 0, and Ne nuclei from the local interstellar medium. These observations, along with earlier work from a series of COSMOS satellites, confirm a prediction made more than a decade ago. The process by which interste1lar material finds its way into the magnetosphere involves a rather fascinating series of steps.

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