Comparison of terrestrial exospheric hydrogen 3D distributions at solar minimum and maximum using TWINS Lyman-α observations

Abstract

Remote sensing observations of far-ultraviolet (FUV) emissions have been used to estimate 3D neutral hydrogen (H) density models of the terrestrial exosphere under solar minimum (2008) and solar maximum (2013 and 2015) conditions. Specifically, we used Lyman-alpha (Lyman-α, FUV at 121.6 nm) radiance data acquired by the Lyman-alpha detectors (LADs) onboard NASA’s TWINS satellites, collected over several days for each of the 3 years to provide sufficient coverage of the exospheric region. The datasets included Lyman-α measurements taken only above Earth radii (Re) of 3.75, assumed to be the optically thin region of the exosphere, where the measured Lyman-α intensity along a line of sight (LOS) is linearly proportional to the atomic hydrogen column density. Based on the calibration using multiple UV-bright stars, a significant decrease in TWINS1 LAD1/2 sensitivities was found for 2013 (LAD2 ∼1/2, LAD ∼1/3) and 2015 (LAD2 ∼1/3, LAD ∼1/7) compared to 2008. The calibration uncertainty was derived to be, on average, 5%. We estimated the 3D global hydrogen density distributions from these radiance data using two different tomographic inversion methods: first, a parametric fitting method based on a spherical harmonic function of order 3 and second, a high degree-of-freedom retrieval approach to validate our retrievals of H density. Both inversion methods consistently incorporate the effects of Lyman-α absorption within the exosphere and Lyman-α re-emission from Earth’s albedo. Our results reveal that H densities during solar maximum conditions are, on average, 30%–40% higher than those during solar minimum. All models showed a high concentration of atomic H on the dayside and nightside near the Sun–Earth line, which determines a nose/geotail structure consistent with theoretical effects from the solar radiation pressure. Furthermore, we identified that H-density enhancements during solar maximum with respect to solar minimum conditions occur at mid-to-high latitudes, particularly on the dusk side, while no significant enhancement seems to occur near the dayside nose.