Isolated Auroral Spots Observed by DMSP/SSUSI

This work reports auroral spots event observed by the SSUSI instruments on board the DMSP spacecraft between 22 and 23 July 2009 during the recovery phase of a moderate magnetic storm. The spots were observed between 18:00 and 02:00 magnetic local time and stayed at ~60\textdegree magnetic latitude. They lasted for ~10 hr and corotated with ~64\% of the Earth\textquoterights rotational speed. In situ observations indicate that the isolated auroral spots were produced by energetic ions at energies between 10 and 240 keV, with significantly anisotropic electron (30\textendash300 keV) precipitations. It is expected that the energetic ions originate from the ring current and can be scattered by the EMIC waves through cyclotron resonance. The energetic electrons can be precipitated by the nonresonant interaction between the electrons and EMIC waves, which is suggested by previous works.