INSTITUTET FOR RYMDFYSIK
Swedish Institute of Space Physics
June 18, 1997
Dr. R. B. Sheldon
Center for Space Physics
Boston University
725 Commonwealth Ave
Boston MA 02215 USA
Dear Colleagues,
We enjoyed looking at the nice ENA images obtained by the IPS/ POLAR
instrument and reading your paper "First energetic neutral atom
images from Polar" in the May 15 issue of Geophysical Research
Letters, pages 1167-1170. ENA imaging receives more and more credits
from the magnetophseric community and the POLAR results are and will
be contributing to this new and exciting area.
Besides the POLAR spacecraft, two more satellites GEOTAIL and the
Astrid microsatellite, have recently performed ENA measurements. While
the GEOTAIL results have been partially referenced in your paper, the
Astrid measurements have not been mentioned at all, despite the fact
that they have been reported at many conferences including all the AGU
meetings since the fall 1995. The papers presenting the Astrid ENA
data were initially submitted for publication in Geophysical Research
Letters on February 21, 1996 but the referees considered them as
"having no direct scientific interest" and stated that the results
were too qualitative since the global ion flux reconstruction had not
been performed. We found this criticism unfair and the reports biased
by non-scientific matters and we, thus, refused to publish our results
in GRL. The papers have recently been accepted for publication in
Advances in Space Research. We enclose copies for your
attention.
We are glad that your work did not suffer from the scepticism towards
ENA imaging, as our Astrid reports did, and that new important results
became quickly available for the scientific community. We are looking
forward to seeing further reports on POLAR findings in the area of ENA
imaging.
Yours sincerely,
Prof. Rickard Lundin
Dr. Stas Barabash
Mr. Pontus C:son Brandt
Enc: Copies of two Papers:
Energetic Neutral Atom Imaging by the Astrid Microsatellite
ENA Imaging from the Swedish Micro Satellite Astrid During the
Magnetic Storm of 8 February, 1995.
Cc: Dr. M. G. Henderson
Dr. G. D. Reeves
Dr. H. E. Spence
Dr. R. B. Sheldon
Dr. A. M. Jorgensen,
Dr. J. B. Blake
Dr. J. F. Fennell