1 / 12

Multipoint observations of nightside auroral activity: the Cascades2 sounding rocket mission

Multipoint observations of nightside auroral activity: the Cascades2 sounding rocket mission . Dartmouth College Cornell University NASA Wallops Flight Facility University of New Hampshire NSROC University of Alaska Fairbanks PFISR

eljah
Download Presentation

Multipoint observations of nightside auroral activity: the Cascades2 sounding rocket mission

An Image/Link below is provided (as is) to download presentation Download Policy: Content on the Website is provided to you AS IS for your information and personal use and may not be sold / licensed / shared on other websites without getting consent from its author. Content is provided to you AS IS for your information and personal use only. Download presentation by click this link. While downloading, if for some reason you are not able to download a presentation, the publisher may have deleted the file from their server. During download, if you can't get a presentation, the file might be deleted by the publisher.

E N D

Presentation Transcript

  1. Multipoint observations of nightside auroral activity: the Cascades2 sounding rocket mission Dartmouth College Cornell University NASA Wallops Flight Facility University of New Hampshire NSROC University of Alaska Fairbanks PFISR KTH-Stockholm Poker Flat Research Range SRI SSL/UCB K A Lynch, Dartmouth College 2009 Fall AGU SM53D-05

  2. Outline • Cascades2 mission and goals • March 2009 PFRR nightside event • Three science topics • PBI case study (Themis, PFISR, cameras, in situ observations) • Measurement of DCE shear frequencies • Deconvolving a tall-ray event • Summary and ongoing efforts

  3. Science objectives and questions (1) Does dynamic aurora move with respect to the background ionosphere? How much? Does it matter? Proper motion and evolution of arc structures… (2) What is the spatial as compared to temporal variation of auroral parameters like B and E? What does this mean for theories of energy transfer? Quantifying shears… (3) Alfven waves carry disturbances and changes down to and through the auroral zone, giving us structured and dancing aurora. They are pretty: do they matter? Are these structures significant for magnetosphere/ionosphere coupling? Do direct observations of these motions validate theories and models? Deconvolving a tall-ray event…

  4. Bo PFRR PFISR Toolik Kaktovic C2 array: E and B along Bo e- across Bo Fast e- down Bo Image down Bo Ground cameras Radar GPS position and timing

  5. Event: 20 March 2009 11:11:11UT apogee Near local magnetic midnight 564 km apogee Repeating PBI event

  6. PBI case study • First two, unaccelerated (or minimally accelerated) Maxwellians • Different from “typical” inverted-V arcs, but discrete • 3rd, wave accelerated, field-aligned

  7. Shear Frequencies

  8. Tall rays

  9. Array size: 4-6 km along B ~0.5 km across B Structure: footpoint 100-200 km altitude 2 km wide/13 km/sec = 0.15sec

  10. Other ongoing • Magnetometer deconvolution • Ion motion up and down field line • Further development of onboard camera • Plasma density measurements • Stereo camera imaging • Multiple-point measurements separating d/dx from d/dt….3 payloads, 4 payloads, 5 payloads, …10?

  11. www.dartmouth.edu/~aurora

More Related