Neutral Hydrogen in the Terrestrial Thermosphere and Exosphere

Mierkiewicz, E. J.

doi:10.1002/9781119815631.ch8

Cited by 2 publications

(1 citation statement)

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“…These multi-line observations can provide detailed information about hydrogen's upward evaporative flux, vertical column density and kinetic partition function populations. The application of highly sensitive Fabry-Perot (and SHS) techniques has also opened new ground-based remote sensing avenues, including observations of sub Rayleigh Balmer β emission (Mierkiewicz, 2021;Roesler et al, 2014;Gardner et al, 2017). By utilizing the Bamer-lines ground data and the Lyman-lines space data, we can constrain forward-model retrieved hydrogen density profiles (e.g., Bishop et al, 2004;Gardner et al, 2017).…”

Section: Developing Technologies and Techniques For Detecting Exosphe...mentioning

confidence: 99%

The Earth’s exosphere and its response to space weather

Connor,

Jung,

Claudepierre

et al. 2023

Bulletin of the AAS

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Boulder, and 10 JHU/APL Synopsis:Neutral-Plasma charge exchange is a fundamental physical process that occurs ubiquitously across the universe. In geospace, charge exchange occurs in the Earth's topside ionosphere, polar wind, plasmasphere, inner magnetosphere, and magnetosheath. Past and current space missions have profiled plasma and electromagnetic characteristics in various parts of the Earth's magnetospheric system. However, observations of the exosphere, i.e., neutrals above 500 km altitude, are still sparse and, in some regions, non-existent, which limits our understanding of the neutral contribution to the overall dynamics of the geospace environment.Cold exospheric neutrals (< 10 eV) play an important role in the Sun-Earth interaction. Variability of exospheric density provides key information of the Earth's atmospheric loss under dynamic space environment conditions. Various neutral species and their density variations in the polar wind can alter ion outflow patterns, modifying global magnetospheric dynamics. Exospheric neutrals also provide an energy sink for the inner magnetosphere by creating Energetic Neutral Atoms (ENAs) through charge exchange with high-energy ring current ions, which subsequently leave our geospace system unimpeded by magnetic fields. Exospheric neutrals also provide a means to observe the global interaction of the solar wind -magnetosphere, through global imaging of the system via ENAs (e.g., the TWINS and IMAGE missions) and soft X-rays (e.g., the upcoming LEXI and SMILE missions), the byproducts of neutral-plasma charge exchange.In the coming decade, we advocate that our community needs to increase our exploration of the neutral populations in the outermost reaches of the Earth's atmosphere. It is imperative that we improve both in-situ and remote-sensing technologies for measuring key neutral species in our exosphere. We also encourage dedicated exosphere missions and to stimulate model developments of our exosphere and its interaction with the co-located magnetospheric system and neighboring Ionosphere -Thermosphere -Mesosphere system.

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