Airglow Signatures of a Fireball and a Solar Flare in the Nighttime Thermosphere
Abstract
The 23:48 UT, Dec. 18, 2018 Bering Sea fireball produced an apparent zonal wave signature in the neutral winds over Millstone Hill, MA. Doppler shifts of the 630 nm emission measured there indicate that an ambient 180 m/s eastward zonal wind component at 0300 UT Dec. 19 shifted rapidly to a 160 m/s westward flow by 0500 UT, returning to 100 m/s eastward flow by 0600 UT. 630 nm brightness enhancements are evident in all directions following wave arrival, and E-region winds and F-region temperature imply the source of the wave was due to a thermospheric bow shock as opposed to the detonation blast wave. A modest and temporally isolated C.1.3 solar flare at 0300 UT on March 8, 2019 coincides with a nearly instantaneous 630 nm brightness enhancement. Because no 630 nm temperature enhancement or wind perturbation coincided with the event, and no E-region perturbations were evident, the source of the 630 nm brightness enhancement appears to be the resonance of scattered light from the flare into the nightside thermosphere.
- Publication:
-
AGU Fall Meeting Abstracts
- Pub Date:
- December 2019
- Bibcode:
- 2019AGUFMNH33C0920K
- Keywords:
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- 4301 Atmospheric;
- NATURAL HAZARDS;
- 4302 Geological;
- NATURAL HAZARDS;
- 4305 Space weather;
- NATURAL HAZARDS;
- 4315 Monitoring;
- forecasting;
- prediction;
- NATURAL HAZARDS