The plasmasphere is a region of ionized particles around the Earth caused by interactions between the Earth's magnetic field and charged particles from the Sun. Monitoring the plasmasphere is a challenge because radiation from the plasmasphere is generated in ultraviolet, which is not detectable from the surface of Earth, and the region encompasses a large volume which is difficult to image from a satellite. To overcome these barriers, one of the instruments that was part of the Chang'e 3 mission was the Extreme Ultraviolet Camera which was designed to image the complete plasmasphere of the Earth from the Moon. A description of this instrument and some initial results are included in this article.

http://www.raa-journal.org/raa/index.php/raa/article/view/1945