Abstract
We discuss briefly particle distributions, currents, and the ring current situation prior to the August 1984 launch of the AMPTE Charge Composition Explorer (CCE). Next we present CCE results which demonstrate the capability of these new measurements to pursue questions of ring current sources, energization, and transport. We then consider various ring current generation mechanisms which have been discussed in the literature and present a two-step generation process which to a certain extent unifies the previous mechanisms. Next, we discuss the first in-situ global observations of ring current decay as obtained through the detection of energetic neutral atoms generated by charge exchange interactions between the ring current and hydrogen geocorona. Finally, we discuss the possibility of using the detection of energetic neutral atoms to obtain global images of the earth's ring current and present the first crude images so obtained [1-3].
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