GOLD Observations of the Thermospheric Response to the 10–12 May 2024 Gannon Superstorm

The storm impacted power grids, disrupted precision navigational systems used by farming equipment, and generated aurora seen around the globe. The storm produced remarkable effects on composition, temperature, and dynamics in the Earth's thermosphere that were observed by NASA's Global-scale Observations of the Limb and Disk (GOLD) mission and are reported here for the first time.

We use synoptic disk images of Sigma O/N2 and neutral temperature (at similar to 160 km) measured by GOLD to directly link dynamics resulting from the storm with dramatic changes in thermospheric composition and temperature. We observe a heretofore unseen spatial morphology simultaneously in Sigma O/N2, neutral temperature, and total electron content. Equator-to-pole temperature differences reach 400 K with high latitude peak neutral temperatures near 160 km exceeding 1400 K.