DE 1 Spin-Scan Auroral Imager: Ultraviolet Images and Spacecraft Telemetry

Ultraviolet images of Earth's aurora captured by the Dynamics Explorer 1 satellite's Spin-Scan Auroral Imager. The data includes quasi-logarithmically compressed intensity counts and spacecraft position, velocity, and spin axis vectors. NASA provides this data in CDF format via CDAWeb.

Use Cases

• Analyze auroral morphology and intensity based on ultraviolet image counts.
• Correlate auroral activity with spacecraft position and velocity vectors.
• Study temporal evolution of auroral events based on the 3 to 12 minute image resolution.

Strengths

• Includes spacecraft telemetry (GCI position, velocity, and spin axis vectors) alongside imagery.
• Images have a defined temporal resolution of 3 to 12 minutes.
• Data is provided by the authoritative source NASA.

Limitations

• Description metadata is limited; actual data quality requires manual inspection after download.
• Row count and file size are unknown, which may limit suitability assessment.

Provenance

Source

National Aeronautics and Space Administration

Collection Method

Collected by the Spin-Scan Auroral Imager (SAI) instrument on the Dynamics Explorer 1 (DE 1) spacecraft.

Time Range

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Freshness

Last updated 2026-03-13 07:45:39.206801; freshness should be verified.

Geography

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