POLArisation of the thermospheric Red Line In Svalbard
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POLArisation of the thermospheric Red Line In Svalbard

After a series of discoveries and a first wintering at Ny-Âlesund, we performed a wintering from Corbel in order to avoid the light pollution from Ny-Âlesund (winter 2018 – 2019). This was meant as a test to figure out how to handle the difficulties in Corbel – and there were many that prevented us from making successful overwintering observations.
Based on this experience, we aim at fulfilling our goal. The last years observations happened during what is considered as the quietest solar cycle over the last century. We miss observations during active solar and geophysical conditions. Fortunately, the new solar cycle is now raising and its start is active. We are therefore expecting new and exciting results from the next campaigns.
We published one article (Bosse et al., 2020) on the results gained from this program, one theoretical paper based on the modeling from this campaign (Marif and Lilensten, 2020). Two papers are in preparation with very new and exciting results. In the former, we show that our measurements could give access to the currents in the upper atmosphere. The later is based on the fact that last year, we could also turn off the Ny-Âlesund lights and prove that our measurements could constitute a new and very sensitive tool to measure the light pollution. The next 3 winters, we aim at developing these extensions of our program.