As the only visible indicator of the interaction between the solar wind and the magnetosphere, the aurora are central to understanding the mechanisms of solar wind-magnetosphere-ionosphere coupling. Omega bands are mesoscale structures that emerge as eastward moving sinusoidal undulations of the poleward boundary of Earth’s equatorward auroral oval. They appear during extended periods of substorm-like activity, driven by either solar wind or magnetospheric characteristics or dynamic processes. However, the causes of these patterns are not well understood; open questions include both the driving solar wind conditions and the state and dynamic of the inner magnetosphere magnetically connected to these structures. 

This research is a collaboration with Larry Kepko and Bea Gallardo-Lacourt from the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center. The figure below shows omega bands seen over Athabasca on April 30, 2014. Image courtesy of Bea Gallardo-Lacourt and Vivian Cribb. 

All-sky imagers are digital cameras looking upward and recording auroral activity across the entire visible sky. The auroras in these false-color images appear as bright structures, most often aligned in the east west orientation.

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