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Abstract:
ESA’s INTEGRAL space mission has achieved unique results for solar and terrestrial physics, although spacecraft
operations nominally excluded the possibility to point at the Sun or the Earth. The Earth avoidance was,
however, exceptionally relaxed for special occultation observations of the Cosmic X-ray Background (CXB),
which on some occasions allowed the detection of strong X-ray auroral emission. In addition, the most intense
solar flares can be bright enough to be detectable from outside the field of view of the main instruments. This
article presents for the first time the auroral observations by INTEGRAL and reviews earlier studies of the most
intense solar flares. We end by briefly summarising the studies of the Earth’s radiation belts, which can be
considered as another topic of serendipitous science with INTEGRAL.
