Finding Magnetopause Standoff Distance Using a Soft X‐ray Imager: 2. Methods to Analyze 2‐D X‐ray Images

Abstract The Earth's magnetosheath and cusps are the sources of soft X‐rays. In accompanying paper (Part 1) this paper, we discuss methods finding magnetopause position by analyzing X‐ray images. We use software developed for Soft Imager (SXI) on board forthcoming Solar wind Magnetosphere Ionosphere Link Explorer (SMILE) mission. show how to find maximum SXI count rate in noisy maps. verify assumption that emissivity integrated along Line‐of‐Sight ( Ix ) is tangent magnetopause. consider two cases using MHD models apply different magnetospheric masking. Overall, located close gradient or between depending method used. But since angular distance relatively small (about 3°), might be used as an indicator outer boundary a wide layer usually obtained simulations.