Atmospheric Density Response to a Severe Magnetic Storm Detected by the 520 km Altitude Spherical Satellite

Abstract

The polar-orbiting spherical experimental satellite of China for atmospheric density detection with an altitude of ~520 km was successfully launched on 14 October 2021. Based on the dynamic inversion method for atmospheric density and the precise orbit determination data obtained by its GNSS, we inverted the orbital atmospheric density during the severe geomagnetic storm in early November 2021. In this paper, we compared the atmospheric density data obtained by the spherical satellite with the simulations of the MSISE00 and the DTM, evaluated their error distribution, and analyzed the response of the atmospheric density during the severe geomagnetic storm in the dawn–dusk orbit of 520 km altitude. The properties and the physical processes for the atmospheric density of the time evolutions in different latitudes and the global distributions during the severe geomagnetic storm were obtained. We found that the substantial disturbance enhancement and recovery of the atmospheric density of the dawn–dusk orbit have a close correlation with the geomagnetic indexes Kp and Dst. The elevation extends from the poles to the equator, and the relative variation in two hemispheres demonstrates a bimodal nearly symmetric growth structure. The maximum relative variation of the two hemispheres both occurred in the middle latitude, and, for this case, the enhancement of atmospheric density in the mid-latitude region accounted for a larger proportion. The asymmetry between the northern and southern hemispheres is demonstrated by the fact that the absolute value and absolute change in the southern hemisphere in summer are larger than those in the northern hemisphere, and the bimodal structure of the relative variation is inclined to the northern hemisphere.