Simultaneous Images of the Northern and Southern Auroras with the Earth Camera on the Polar Spacecraft

Physics

Scientific paper

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2740 Magnetospheric Configuration And Dynamics, 2753 Numerical Modeling, 2788 Storms And Substorms, 2407 Auroral Ionosphere (2704), 2431 Ionosphere/Magnetosphere Interactions (2736)

Scientific paper

During the period 22 October through late November, 2001, the Polar spacecraft was fortuitously positioned near Earth's equatorial plane such that the wide field-of-view of its far-ultraviolet camera was able to capture simultaneous images of the auroras in the Northern and Southern Hemispheres. This Earth Camera provided sufficient resolution of auroral features that the luminosities could be mapped into corrected geomagnetic coordinates for the first time. A few such images were previously available from the Dynamics Explorer-1 spacecraft, but the viewing aspect and the spatial resolution of the camera were insufficient to map the luminosities onto the Earth's surface. The viewing period for simultaneous imaging of the two auroras with the Polar spacecraft was about one hour during the spacecraft orbital period of 18.3 hours. The results of such imaging were exciting in two important areas of auroral research. These areas were the behavior of the auroral luminosities during substorm activity and the mapping of magnetic field lines from auroral altitudes into the equatorial magnetosphere. One of the principal results concerning substorms was the unequal auroral intensities between the two hemispheres during the onset and the expansive phase of substorms which imply strong coupling between the ionosphere and magnetosphere during these events. With regard to the mapping of field lines it is found that further work on the global magnetic models is required in order to provide accuracies of 1 RE earthward of radial distances of 20 RE.

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