Update (11/30/2007): Click here to view movies of Comets C/2001 Q4 (NEAT) and C/2002 T7 (LINEAR)
The Solar Mass Ejection Imager (SMEI) is an all-sky imager consisting of 3 cameras that currently observes the Sun's outer corona and the heliosphere and provide data for modeling the solar wind. SMEI improves our ability to predict when large coronal mass ejections (CMEs) will hit Earth. These large CMEs can damage Earth-orbiting satellites, overload power grids, and disrupt radio communications. SMEI images also provide information for the study of the Sun and other solar system objects such as comets and asteroids.
SMEI was launched to an Earth-terminator, Sun-synchronous, 840 km orbit on 6 January 2003. It is carried aboard the U.S. Air Force's Coriolis spacecraft with the U.S. Navy's WindSat instrument. SMEI is a joint project of the University of California at San Diego, Boston College, the University of Birmingham (UK), and the Air Force Research Laboratory.
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The image to the left shows the three SMEI camera baffles and their data processing unit. |