The GOLD Mission: Overview of the Early Observations and Their Validation

The Global-scale Observations of the Limb and Disk (GOLD) instrument was launched in January 2018. It reached geostationary orbit in July 2018 and commenced routine, daily observations in October 2018. Data from the two-channel ultraviolet imaging spectrograph include disk images at a 30-minute cadence that cover most of the American hemisphere of Earth as well as limb scans and stellar occultations. After processing, the daytime disk data provide simultaneous images of the composition and temperature across the Earth’s lower thermosphere (near 160 km) for the first time. These images are indicative of the state and changes in the lower thermosphere. This is the region where some of the atmospheric tides and waves from lower altitudes dissipate their energy and where the solar and geomagnetic changes can cause dramatic changes in the space weather. The data collected have been validated against various data sources. In this presentation, we give an overview of the first results from GOLD and of the comparisons between GOLD and other space and ground based data sources.