Back to Top


More Aurora Borealis and D-Region Absorbtion Information.

SSUSI remotely senses the physical and chemical processes in the Earth's upper atmosphere. Measurements are made from the extreme ultraviolet (EUV) to the far ultraviolet (FUV) over the wavelength range of 80 nm to 170 nm, with 1.8 nm resolution. The DMSP satellites are launched in near-polar, sun-synchronous orbits at an altitude of approximately 850 km..


Conditions in the D-region of the ionosphere have a dramatic effect on high frequency (HF) communications and low frequency (LF) navigation systems. These D-RAP maps depict the D-region at high latitudes by showing the highest frequency affected by absorption of 10 dB due to primarily to SEP events..


The nowcast maps are generated by OVATION Prime - a new-generation precipitation model (Newell et al., 2010) driven by an optimized solar wind coupling function (Newell et al., 2007). The model includes seasonal variation and separates different types of auroras - monoenergetic, wave, diffuse and ion. In these maps all types are summed together - Electrons + Ions: 10Re above Earth...

Images are updated at regular intervals - courtesy of NOAA and Sol24.net