EVOLUTION HISTORY OF PLASMA BLOBS AS DEDUCED FROM SWARM, GOLD, AND MADRIGAL TEC DATA

Abstract:

On 23 November 2019 NASA GOLD mission observed equatorial plasma bubbles (EPBs), whose northernmost edges are bordered with the cone-like enhancement of 135.6 nm airglow over the background. Madrigal TEC maps also show EPBs with the cone-like northernmost boundaries having higher TECs than the ambient. One hour later both Swarm-Alpha and Swarm-Charlie encountered low-latitude plasma blobs near those EPB boundaries. The blob signatures in Madrigal TEC maps are elongated from northwest to southeast, and the structures do not move in the westward/equatorward direction. Continental-scale coverage of the TEC data reveal that the blob event in the Northern Hemisphere is near-conjugate to EPBs in the Southern Hemisphere. We are looking forward to the synergy between GOLD, Madrigal TEC, Swarm, ICON and COSMIC-2 for studying low-latitude plasma blobs and their interconnections to the EPBs or other ionosphere instabilities.