Large‐scale structures in the equatorial ionosphere and their connection to the generalized Rayleigh‐Taylor instability

For the first time, electric field and density fluctuations have been simultaneously measured on the Communications/Navigation Outage Forecasting System satellite at large scales (>300 km). The ratio of their spectral power rises as k 2 , unlike scales from 20 m to 300 km where the ratio is independent of k . We suggest that gravity waves dominate these large scales and mix with density gradients via self‐generated electric fields to form δn / n 0 .