HR: 14:55h
AN: SM33D-06 INVITED     [Abstracts]
TI: Optical Auroral Observations at High Latitudes to Investigate Processes at the Foot of Magnetic Field Lines That Map Into the Interplanetary Medium
AU: * Mende, S B
EM: mende@ssl.berkeley.edu
AF: Space Sciences Laboratrory, University of California at Berkeley, 7 Gauss Way, Berkeley, CA 94720 United States
AB: At high magnetic latitudes the magnetic field lines, are open and they map from the ground into the interplanetary medium. Due to the larger offset between the geographic and geomagnetic poles in the Southern hemisphere the Antarctic Continent is especially suitable for making visible wavelength optical observations of the foot of such field lines. Near the Austral winter solstice the entire polar cap, the region of open field lines are in darkness. For many years optical observation had been conducted in the Antarctica, mostly at South Pole station, with focus on studying dayside auroral phenomena that may be associated with the reconnection process between the interplanetary and the Earth's field. Although a great deal has been learned from such ground based observations, satellite based global views especially those from the IMAGE satellite proton imager, that is quite blind to dayside solar produced luminosities, contributed significantly to our understanding of the global scale morphology of the high latitude regions. Ground based optical observatory arrays are still very useful for providing the small to medium scale view of the various phenomena and the development of such array of observatories in Antarctica are still being actively pursued. Although it is not its primary purpose, the ground based THEMIS array will also be on line in the near future and it will make observations of the nightside polar cap region. In the near future there will be several arrays in operation to study the region of field lines that map from the ground into the interplanetary medium.
DE: 2407 Auroral ionosphere (2704)
DE: 2427 Ionosphere/atmosphere interactions (0335)
DE: 2475 Polar cap ionosphere
SC: SPA-Magnetospheric Physics [SM]
MN: Fall Meeting 2005