A NEURAL-NETWORK BASED SYSTEM FOR MONITORING THE AURORA

Electrons and ions from the various regions surrounding the Earth rain down upon, or precipitate into, the upper atmosphere at high latitudes. The visible manifestation of this precipitation is the aurora, which in the Northern Hemisphere is also called the northern lights. The particles precipitating into the Earth's atmosphere can be used as a diagnostic-a "space weather" monitor. A series of Air Force Defense Meteorological Satellite Program satellites, collectively in continuous operation, measure precipitating particles in the range where most of the energy flux is carried. We have developed an algorithm for automatically monitoring the high-latitude precipitation, including a neural-network-based identification of the source region of all precipitation observed. The result is an enormous and sophisticated database, one use of which is to determine the appropriate mapping of ionospheric magnetic field lines into near-Earth space. The database is also being provided on a limited basis to the space physics community as a service. In addition, the system is a logical step in the development of a real-time capability to predict space weather.