IBEX First Skymap Release

This movie pulls out from the region of the IBEX spacecraft to beyond the heliopause, illustrating the region which is the source of the IBEX data.

The movie opens with a view looking down on the Earth, the Moon and its orbit, and the IBEX satellite.

Our view moves closer to the plane of the ecliptic (the grid) illustrating how the orbit of IBEX extends almost as far as the Moon, but is inclined relative to the lunar orbit.

Pulling back from the Earth, we see a more complete view of the IBEX orbit (green) and also fade in a path representing the orbit of the Earth (blue).

Pulling back even further from the Earth, we pass the Sun. The violet arrow represents the direction of the Sun's motion with respect to the local interstellar medium. We have now included the IBEX skymap as a semi-transparent layer (revealing the stars beyond).

Pulling back farther still, beyond the orbit of Pluto, we view the IBEX skymap in the direction of the Sun's relative motion. We also see the position of the two Voyager spacecraft.

We now pass outside the heliopause boundary. The region of emission detected by IBEX is now represented by a thin spherical shell around the Sun. In reality, the emission is probably from a much thicker region but the IBEX skymap cannot determine that scale.

We crack open the sphere projecting the IBEX skymap...

to view the map within.

We now open and distort the sphere projecting the IBEX skymap into a form similar to the Aitoff or Hammer map projection.

Colorbar for IBEX skymap. ENA = Energetic Neutral Atoms