The Dublin Institute of Advanced Studies (DIAS) will be hosting a seminar by Jesper Gjerloev, Sam Yee, and the entire EZIE Team on 2 June at 3pm (Dublin). Jesper will give an overview of the EZIE mission to study Earth's auroral electrojets. The title and abstract are below; the Zoom link can be found on the MIST mailing list.
EZIE will image the magnetic signature of the ionospheric electrojets using the Zeeman splitting of the O2 thermal emissions originating from around 80km altitude. EZIE’s 3 smallsats each carry a microwave electrojet magnetogram (MEM) instrument for multipoint vector magnetic field measurements proximate to the source current thereby revealing the structure and evolution of the electrojets. In situ measurements of the electrojet region have proved elusive because the altitudes are too high for balloons and too low for satellites. EZIE’s multi-point measurements will provide unprecedented 2D current maps allowing for a separation of spatial and temporal variations of the electrojets.
EZIE will address two primary science questions that have remained elusive because of observation limitations:
EZIE’s science augmentation characterizes the spatiotemporal structure of equatorial electrojets and explores the physical mechanisms of their generation, resulting in EZIE’s third science question:
The presentation will provide an overview of the mission with a focus on science and implementation. We will show results from comprehensive and realistic end-to-end simulations to illustrate the unprecedented observational capabilities of the EZIE mission.