The Atmosphere-Space Interactions Monitor (ASIM) is an observatory on the International Space Station (ISS) that measures lightning and bursts of gamma-rays from thunderstorm clouds. The overarching goal is to understand the role of electrified storms in atmospheric dynamics. ASIM is a mission of the European Space Agency ESA’s SciSpace Programme for scientific utilization of the ISS and non-ISS space exploration platforms and space environment analogues. It is funded by the Danish Ministry of Higher Education and Science who supported ASIM from the Danish Globalization Fund for Climate Initiatives (2009–2012) via a special contribution to ESA, and by national and ESA funds from, Denmark, Spain, Norway, Italy, Poland and Belgium. The ASIM consortium is formed by Terma A/S, Technical University of Denmark, University of Bergen, University of Valencia, Polish Academy of Sciences Space Research Center, and OHB Italia. The Technical University of Denmark is leading the scientific advisory board to ESA and Terma A/S is the prime contractor under ESA for the payload development. Initial phases started in 2004 to 2009, and development started in 2010. ASIM was launched April 2nd, 2018, with CRS-14 Falcon-9/Dragon by SpaceX. The budget of ASIM is 35-40 MEUR. ASIM science data center (ASDC) is processing and distributing the ASIM data.
More about ASDC
ASIM and its six very productive years in space have made the front page of the Danish Physical Society's journal, 'KVANT', with a splendid artist's representation of a gamma flash seen by ASIM from a magnetar, provided by the University of Bergen and Mount Visual. Issue 4 of the Danish Journal for Physics and Astronphysics will be appearing during December 2024. The journal and homepage are in Danish.
ASIM Collaborators Have Most-Downloaded Article in 2022
DTU Space researchers in the Atmospheric Electricity group have been awarded a diploma for from the American Geophysical Union journal Geophysical Research Letters for writing one of the most downloaded research papers in 2022. Christoph Köhn, Martin Bødker Enghoff and Olivier Chanrion wrote the paper entritled 'Streamer Discharges in the Atmosphere of Primordial Earth' with their colleague Sasa Dujko. While Olivier is an active member of the ASIM instrument team and Science Data Centre, the other researchers work on theoretical and mathematical models which are used to understand the processes seen in the ASIM data. Their current research focuses on how lightning streamers develop in atmospheres with various compositions, including the chemical composition and conditions of primordial Earth.
DTU Space releases images taken by Andreas Mogensen
@DTUSpace: Med et kamerasystem fra DTU Space har
@Astro_Andreas
taget nye fantastiske billeder til vores forskning i de voldsomme lyn-fænomener, der finder sted i Jordens atmosfære. Her et blåligt lyn i en sky og over det et lyn kaldet en rød fe #dkrummet #dkastro
The Danish ESA astronaut, Andreas Mogensen, has been filming unusual lighting-like discharges above the world's most energetic thunderstorms. Here are the first picutres.
University of Malaga chooses ASIM paper for first prize in Research Excellence
To celebrate the 50th Anniversary of the founding of the University of Malaga, Spain, the university has awarded its first prize ever for Excellence in Research to an ASIM paper, led by UMA professor Alberto Castro-Tirado. The paper about ASIM's detection of quasi-periodic oscillations (QPOs) in the initial explosion of a magnetar flare, was published in Nature in December 2021. The author list includes many prominent ASIM and ASDC collaborators and partners. Though the ASIM instruments were designed to look down on the Earth to study electrical discharges from powerful thunderstorms. there is no way to stop high energy photons (x-rays and gamma rays) from space penetrating the sides of the instruments and being registered by the detectors. In this way ASIM observed in better detail than any other instrument the magnetic explosion of a neutron star in another galaxy (NGC 253).
