Low-latitude plasma blobs above Africa: Exploiting GOLD and multi-satellite in situ measurements

Jaeheung Park, Kyoung Wook Min, Richard W. Eastes, Chi Kuang Chao, Hee Eun Kim, Junchan Lee, Jongdae Sohn, Kwangsun Ryu, Hoonkyu Seo, Ji Hyeon Yoo, Seunguk Lee, Changho Woo, Eo Jin Kim

研究成果: 雜誌貢獻期刊論文同行評審

1 引文 斯高帕斯(Scopus)

摘要

Low-latitude plasma blobs are localized density enhancements of electron density that are occasionally observed in the night-time tropical ionosphere. Two-dimensional (2D) imaging of this phenomenon has been rare and frequently restricted to Central/South America, which is densely covered with ground-based airglow imagers and Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) receivers. In Africa, on the contrary, no 2D image of a blob has been reported. Here we present two low-latitude blob events above Africa, one in the Northern summer and the other in winter, in the 2-dimensional Far-UltraViolet (FUV) images from the Global-scale Observations of the Limb and Disk (GOLD) mission. Additionally, multiple satellites (four spacecraft per event) on the Low-Earth-Orbit (LEO) encountered the blob events, some within the GOLD images and some outside. The LEO data support the robustness of GOLD observations and bridge time gaps between the consecutive images. Properties of the two blob events above Africa generally support the conclusions in a previous case study for Central/South America. Plasma therein exhibited higher O+ fraction and faster ion flow toward outer L-shells than the ambient. The blobs were conjugate to locally intensified Equatorial Ionization Anomaly crests without conspicuous equatorward-westward propagation. Our results demonstrate the usefulness of GOLD and multiple LEO satellites in monitoring the ionosphere above Africa, which is a fascinating laboratory of low-latitude electrodynamics but still waiting for more observatories to be deployed.

原文???core.languages.en_GB???
頁(從 - 到)726-740
頁數15
期刊Advances in Space Research
72
發行號3
DOIs
出版狀態已出版 - 1 8月 2023

指紋

深入研究「Low-latitude plasma blobs above Africa: Exploiting GOLD and multi-satellite in situ measurements」主題。共同形成了獨特的指紋。

引用此