Dataset of night-time emissions of the Earth in the near UV range (290-430 nm), with 6.3 km resolution in the latitude range -51.6<L<+51.6 degrees, acquired on board the International Space Station with the Mini-EUSO detector

Abstract

The data presented in this article are related to the research paper entitled "Observation of night-time emissions of the Earth in the near UV range from the International Space Station with the Mini-EUSO detector" (Remote Sensing of Environment, Volume 284, January 2023, 113336, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.rse.2022.113336). The data have been acquired with the Mini-EUSO detector, an UV telescope operating in the range 290-430 nm and located inside the International Space Station. The detector was launched in August 2019, and it has started operations from the nadir-facing UV-transparent window in the Russian Zvezda module in October 2019. The data presented here refer to 32 sessions acquired between 2019-11-19 and 2021-05-06. The instrument consists of a Fresnel-lens optical system and a focal surface composed of 36 multi-anode photomultiplier tubes, each with 64 channels, for a total of 2304 channels with single photon counting sensitivity. The telescope, with a square field-of-view of 44°, has a spatial resolution on the Earth surface of 6.3 km and saves triggered transient phenomena with a temporal resolution of 2.5 µs and 320 µs. The telescope also operates in continuous acquisition at a 40.96 ms scale. In this article, large-area night-time UV maps obtained processing the 40.96 ms data, taking averages over regions of some specific geographical areas (e.g., Europe, North America) and over the entire globe, are presented. Data are binned into 0.1° × 0.1° or 0.05° × 0.05° cells (depending on the scale of the map) over the Earth's surface. Raw data are made available in the form of tables (latitude, longitude, counts) and .kmz files (containing the .png images). These are - to the best of our knowledge - the highest sensitivity data in this wavelength range and can be of use to various disciplines.

Keywords: Earth observation from space; ISS; Mini-EUSO; UV maps; UV terrestrial emissions.

Fig. 1

From top-left, in counterclockwise direction: 1. The Mini-EUSO telescope in the Zvezda module of the ISS. 2. The Telescope during its installation on the nadir facing, UV-transparent window of the station. 3. A close up of the Zvezda module, showing the window employed during observations. 4. The position of the Zvezda module in reference to the rest of the station.

Fig. 2

Left: The 48 × 48-pixel focal surface of Mini-EUSO. The 36 64-channel Hamamatsu Multi-Anode Photomultipliers cover an area of 17 × 17 cm² and are covered by BG3 UV-range filters. Right: The outermost 25 cm diameter Fresnel lens, one of the two that compose the optical system of the telescope.

Fig. 3

The detection efficiency of Mini-EUSO (black curve) as a function of wavelength. This is the result of the transmittance of the UV-transparent window of the ISS (green curve), the optics (purple curve), the BG3 bandpass filter (red curve) and the MAPMT photon detection efficiency (blue curve) . Efficiency data are in wavelength_response.txt file. Modified from .