SPIDER-2 Sounding Rocket: Plasma measurements and electromagnetic fields in Pulsating Aurora

The SPIDER-2 sounding rocket was launched into a Pulsating Aurora event in February 2020. It was launched from Esrange (67°53'22.79" N, 21°06'15.00" E) and it recorded multipoint measurements of the plasma parameters and electromagnetic fields up to an altitude of almost 130 km. The in situ measurements obtained by the rocket and the eight free falling units were complemented by ground based optical instrumentation obtained by the ALIS4D sky imagers and a High Speed Camera. The main instruments carried by the main rocket were four electron probes, two ion probes, a faraday antenna and a photometer, while the free falling units carried four cylindrical langmuir probes and four spherical electric field probes each, together with magnetometer sensors. 

The parameters obtained by the different instruments have been analyzed and compared among each other and with the optical images. Some characteristics of the pulsating aurora event we launched into were: pulsations with a period of 1 to 2 seconds, peak emission and peak electron density altitude of about 100 km and precipitating electrons with energies around 20 keV. 

In this seminar, I will show and compare electron density and electron temperature profiles, ion density along the trajectory, radiance measured along the line of sight and intensity measured by the high speed camera at the footprint of the rocket. I will show and discuss how the parameters change along the trajectory of the rocket and how they correlate. In addition, I will present our study on the multi-point measurements of in situ electric and magnetic fields and their relation to the electrodynamics of the E-region.