Energetic neutral atom Energetic neutral atom Energetic neutral atom (ENA) imaging, often described as "seeing with atoms", is a technology used to create global images of otherwise invisible phenomena in the magnetospheres of planets and throughout the heliosphere, even to its outer boundary. This constitutes the far-flung edge of the solar system. The solar wind consists of ripped-apart atoms (called plasma) flying out of the Sun. This is mostly hydrogen, that is, bare electrons and protons, with a little bit of other kinds of nuclei, mostly helium. The space between solar systems is similar, but they come from other stars in our galaxy.
Plasma (physics) describes the behaviour of the Ionised atomic nuclei and the electrons within the surrounding region of the plasma. Very simply, each of these nuclei are suspended in a movable sea of electrons. Plasma was first identified in a Crookes tube, and so described by Sir William Crookes in 1879 (he called it "radiant matter"). The nature of this "cathode ray" matter was subsequently identified by British physicist Sir J.J. Thomson in 1897. The term "plasma" was coined by Irving Langmuir in 1928. Lewi Tonks and Harold Mott-Smith, both of whom worked with Irving Langmuir in the 1920s, recall that Langmuir