SA51A-4070:
Latitudinal Enhancements of 630 nm Midnight Brightness Using FORMOSAT-2/ISUAL
Friday, 19 December 2014
P. K. Rajesh1, C. H. Chen1, Chien-hung Lin1, J. Y. Liu2, J. D. Huba3, Alfred Bing-Chih Chen1, Rue-Ron Hsu1 and Yu-Tsung Chen1, (1)NCKU National Cheng Kung University, Tainan, Taiwan, (2)NCU National Central University of Taiwan, Institute of Space Science, Jhongli, Taiwan, (3)US Naval Research Laboratory, Plasma Physics Division, Monterey, CA, United States
Abstract:
In this study, intense airglow brightness that appear in the latitude scans of 630.0 nm limb images, taken at local midnight period, using Imager of Sprites and Upper Atmospheric Lightnings (ISUAL), onboard FORMOSAT-2 satellite, are investigated. The enhancements appear as single or multiple peaks and in some cases as bright and dark bands of airglow intensity modulation. Though the peaks mostly appear near the equatorial region, in some cases they are seen at mid-latitudes as well. Detailed simulations are carried out using SAMI2 (SAMI2 is Another Model of the Ionosphere) model parameters to understand such intense emission in the near midnight period. The simulations reproduced the measured airglow intensity pattern quite remarkably and suggest that plasma density distribution by meridional neutral wind could play a major role in producing the brightness, while the intensity bands could be caused by Medium Scale Traveling Ionospheric Disturbances.
