Initial Observations by the GOLD Mission

Eastes, R. W.; McClintock, W. E.; Burns, A. G.; Anderson, D. N.; Andersson, L.; Aryal, S.; Budzien, S. A.; Cai, X.; Codrescu, M. V.; Correira, J. T.; Daniell, R. E.; Dymond, K. F.; England, S. L.; Eparvier, F. G.; Evans, J. S.; Foroosh, H.; Gan, Q.; Greer, K. R.; Karan, D. K.; Krywonos, A.; Laskar, F. I.; Lumpe, J. D.; Martinis, C. R.; McPhate, J. B.; Oberheide, J.; Siegmund, O. H.; Solomon, S. C.; Veibel, V.; Woods, T. N.

doi:10.1029/2020JA027823

i

Initial Observations by the GOLD Mission

2020
By Eastes, R. W. ; McClintock, W. E. ; Burns, A. G. ; ...

Details

Journal Title:

Journal of Geophysical Research: Space Physics
Personal Author:

Eastes, R. W. ; McClintock, W. E. ; Burns, A. G. ; Anderson, D. N. ; Andersson, L. ; Aryal, S. ; Budzien, S. A. ; Cai, X. ; Codrescu, M. V. ; Correira, J. T. ; Daniell, R. E. ; Dymond, K. F. ; England, S. L. ; Eparvier, F. G. ; Evans, J. S. ; Foroosh, H. ; Gan, Q. ; Greer, K. R. ; Karan, D. K. ; Krywonos, A. ; Laskar, F. I. ; Lumpe, J. D. ; Martinis, C. R. ; McPhate, J. B. ; Oberheide, J. ; Siegmund, O. H. ; Solomon, S. C. ; Veibel, V. ; Woods, T. N.
NOAA Program & Office:

CIRES (Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences)
Description:

The NASA Global-scale Observations of the Limb and Disk (GOLD) mission has flown an ultraviolet-imaging spectrograph on SES-14, a communications satellite in geostationary orbit at 47.5°W longitude. That instrument observes the Earth's far ultraviolet (FUV) airglow at ~134–162 nm using two identical channels. The observations performed include limb scans, stellar occultations, and images of the sunlit and nightside disk from 6:10 to 00:40 universal time each day. Initial analyses reveal interesting and unexpected results as well as the potential for further studies of the Earth's thermosphere-ionosphere system and its responses to solar-geomagnetic forcing and atmospheric dynamics. Thermospheric composition ratios for major constituents, O and N2, temperatures near 160 km, and exospheric temperatures are retrieved from the daytime observations. Molecular oxygen (O2) densities are measured using stellar occultations. At night, emission from radiative recombination in the ionospheric F region is used to quantify ionospheric density variations in the equatorial ionization anomaly (EIA). Regions of depleted F region electron density are frequently evident, even during the current solar minimum. These depletions are caused by the “plasma fountain effect” and are associated with the instabilities, scintillations, or “spread F” seen in other types of observations, and GOLD makes unique observations for their study.
Keywords:

Airglow Imaging Ionosphere Spectra Thermosphere Ultraviolet
Source:

Journal of Geophysical Research: Space Physics, 125, e2020JA027823
DOI:

https://doi.org/10.1029/2020JA027823
Document Type:

Journal Article
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CC BY-NC
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Submitted
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urn:sha256:2fbe622c942840d4c3100d73804ef26ab6d15fbce02378585698d7d2d0d7961e
Download URL:

https://repository.library.noaa.gov/view/noaa/31932/noaa_31932_DS1.pdf
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[PDF - 3.62 MB ]

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