The global O2 airglow field as seen by the MATS satellite: strong equatorial maximum and planetary wave influence

Journal article, 2025

The Mesospheric Airglow/Aerosol Tomography and Spectroscopy (MATS) satellite was launched in November 2022, carrying as its main instrument a limb-viewing telescope with six spectral channels designed to image atmospheric O2 airglow and noctilucent clouds. Although the main objective of the satellite mission is to observe structures in the airglow introduced by propagating smaller-scale waves, the airglow emissions are also subjected to large-scale dynamic disturbances, such as atmospheric tides and planetary waves. This work presents large-scale structures in the airglow field, as observed by the MATS limb imager from February 2023 to April 2023. The ascending (north-going) node in the satellite orbit, corresponding to the local sunset, is dominated by a strong equatorial maximum in the dayglow. In contrast, the descending (south-going) node, corresponding to the local sunrise, indicates an accompanying equatorial minimum. These characteristics align with the expected behaviour of atmospheric tidal movements. Specifically, a downwelling of atomic oxygen is expected over the Equator at local sunset, contributing to airglow chemistry and enhancing the emissions. Another distinct feature in the data is a westward propagating disturbance observed at high latitudes in the northern hemisphere, maximising in February, interpreted as the quasi-10 d planetary wave of zonal wavenumber 1.