MANGO: An Optical Network to Study the Dynamics of the Earth's Upper Atmosphere

Abstract

The Mid‐latitude All‐sky‐imaging Network for Geophysical Observations (MANGO) employs a combination of two powerful optical techniques used to observe the dynamics of Earth’s upper atmosphere: wide‐field imaging and high‐resolution spectral interferometry. Both techniques observe the naturally occurring airglow emissions produced in the upper atmosphere at 630.0‐ and 557.7‐nm wavelengths. Instruments are deployed to sites across the continental United States, providing the capability to make measurements spanning mid to sub‐auroral latitudes. The current instrument suite in MANGO has five all‐sky imagers observing the 630.0‐nm emission (integrated between ∼200‐400 km altitude), four all‐sky imagers observing the 557.7‐nm emission (integrated between ∼90‐100 km altitude), and three Fabry‐Perot interferometers measuring neutral winds and temperature using both these wavelengths. The deployment of additional imagers is planned. The network makes unprecedented observations of the nighttime thermosphere‐ionosphere dynamics with the expanded field‐of‐view provided by the distributed network of instruments. This paper describes the network, the instruments, the data products, and first results from this effort.

Atmospheric and Ionospheric Responses to Orographic Gravity Waves Prior to the December 2022 Cold Air Outbreak

“…The AIRS BT data has been processed using channels with a peak emission intensity at 35 km altitude (Hoffmann et al., 2013). To investigate GWs in the upper atmosphere and their impact on the ionosphere, we used green line 557.7 nm at ∼95 km altitude and red line 630.0 nm at ∼250 km altitude airglow emission observations from imagers operated by the Midlatitude Allsky‐imaging Network for GeoSpace Observations (MANGO) network (Bhatt et al., 2023). Among those operational during the event, we find the imagers installed at Christmas Valley Observatory (CVO, 43.2°N/120.7°W) and Capitol Reef Field Station (CFS, 38.18°N/111.18°W) to be the most convincing to demonstrate the dynamics of our interest.…”

Multi‐Layer Evolution of Acoustic‐Gravity Waves and Ionospheric Disturbances Over the United States After the 2022 Hunga Tonga Volcano Eruption

“…The red line results from the dissociative recombination of $${\mathrm{O}}_{2}^{+}$$ leading to O 1 D, and originates from 200 to 300 km altitudes. Since it was nearly a full‐moon night, moonlight contaminated data from most airglow imagers, except Midlatitude Allsky‐imaging Network for GeoSpace Observations (MANGO) imagers installed at Capitol Reef Field Station, Utah (38.18°N/111.18°W), which is surrounded by mountains (Bhatt et al., 2023). The spatial coverage by green and red line imagers are ∼500 and ∼1,800 km in diameter respectively, and the integration times are 2 and 4 min, respectively.…”

Quiet Time Thermospheric Gravity Waves Observed by GOCE and CHAMP

“…Previous studies have employed indirect methods to study thermospheric GWs. For example, Bhatt et al (2023) utilized airglow perturbations captured by optical sensors like all-sky imagers and Fabry-Perot Interferometers to derive nighttime wind and temperature perturbations. Another approach uses Global Positioning System (GPS) Total Electron Content data sets to retrieve GW characteristics from TIDs around the F2 layer (Azeem et al, 2015;Nishioka et al, 2013;Xu et al, 2019).…”