The Far-UltraViolet (FUV) imager onboard the Ionospheric Connection Explorer
(ICON) spacecraft provides two-dimensional limb images of oxygen airglow in the
nightside low-latitude ionosphere that are used to determine the oxygen ion density. As
yet, no FUV limb imager has been used for climatological analyses of Equatorial Plasma
Bubbles (EPBs). To examine the potential of ICON/FUV for this purpose, we statistically
investigate small-scale (~180 km) fluctuations of oxygen ion density in its limb images.
The seasonal-longitudinal variations of the fluctuation level reasonably conform to the
EPB statistics in existing literature. To further validate the ICON/FUV data quality, we
also inspect climatology of the ambient (unfiltered) nightside oxygen ion density. The
ambient density exhibits (1) the well-known zonal wavenumber-4 signatures in the
Equatorial Ionization Anomaly (EIA) and (2) off-equatorial enhancement above the
Caribbean, both of which agree with previous studies. Merits of ICON/FUV observations
over other conventional data sets are discussed in this paper. Furthermore, we suggest
possible directions of future work, e.g., synergy between ICON/FUV and the Global-scale
Observations of the Limb and Disk (GOLD) mission.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.