Princeton's David McComas to Lead IMAP, Mission to the Heliosphere (IMAGE)

Princeton University

Princeton's David McComas to Lead IMAP, Mission to the Heliosphere

Caption

Princeton astrophysicist David McComas will be the principal investigator for the Interstellar Mapping and Acceleration Probe (IMAP), a mission launching in 2024 to investigate the heliosphere, the region where particles streaming out from the sun carve out a bubble in the interstellar medium. IMAP will orbit the sun at L1, a million miles sun-ward from Earth, where it will be outside the protective envelope of Earth's magnetic field (shown here in blue).

Credit

Courtesy of the IMAP team

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