E. Parizot, G. Valentini, Francesca Capel, M. Ricci, P. Picozza, A. Djakonow, M. Przybylak, A. Zuccaro-Marchi, M. Traïche, A. Franceschi, F. Cafagna, B. A. Khrenov, F. Fenu, C. de la Taille, Toshikazu Ebisuzaki, Hitoshi Ohmori, Satoshi Wada, P. Gorodetzky, M. Crisconio, Angela V. Olinto, Lech Wiktor Piotrowski, Marco Mignone, M. E. Bertaina, S. Turriziani, W. Marszał, G. Cotto, L. Marcelli, J. Szabelski, I. V. Yashin, H. Kasuga, Naoto Sakaki, Enzo Reali, Kenji Shinozaki, S. Kochepasov, S. Bacholle, A. Haungs, V. D. Kuznetsov, S. Blin-Bondil, Marco Casolino, Z. Plebaniak, Mikhail Panasyuk, I. Churilo, P. Barrillon, G. Prévôt, Pavel Klimov, A. V. Belov, A. Poroshin, L. R. Wiencke, G. Mascetti, G. Osteria, Y. Takizawa, H. Miyamoto, M. Porfilio, C. Blaksley, T. Napolitano, G. Cambiè, Christer Fuglesang, F. Kajino, A. Murashov, F. Bisconti, Matteo Battisti, AstroParticule et Cosmologie (APC (UMR_7164)), Commissariat à l'énergie atomique et aux énergies alternatives (CEA)-Institut National de Physique Nucléaire et de Physique des Particules du CNRS (IN2P3)-Observatoire de Paris, Université Paris sciences et lettres (PSL)-Université Paris sciences et lettres (PSL)-Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS)-Université de Paris (UP), Laboratoire de l'Accélérateur Linéaire (LAL), Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS)-Institut National de Physique Nucléaire et de Physique des Particules du CNRS (IN2P3)-Université Paris-Sud - Paris 11 (UP11), Organisation de Micro-Électronique Générale Avancée (OMEGA), École polytechnique (X)-Institut National de Physique Nucléaire et de Physique des Particules du CNRS (IN2P3), Université Paris sciences et lettres (PSL)-Université Paris sciences et lettres (PSL)-Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS)-Université Paris Cité (UPCité), Université Paris-Sud - Paris 11 (UP11)-Institut National de Physique Nucléaire et de Physique des Particules du CNRS (IN2P3)-Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS), and Institut National de Physique Nucléaire et de Physique des Particules du CNRS (IN2P3)-École polytechnique (X)-Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS)
Mini-EUSO is a telescope observing the Earth in the ultraviolet band from the International Space Station. It is a part of the JEM-EUSO program, paving the way to future larger missions, such as KEUSO and POEMMA, devoted primarily to the observation of Ultra High Energy Cosmic Rays from space. Mini-EUSO is capable of observing Extensive Air Showers generated by Ultra-High Energy Cosmic Rays with an energy above 10^21 eV and detect artificial showers generated with lasers from the ground. Other main scientific objectives of the mission are the search for nuclearites and Strange Quark Matter, the study of atmospheric phenomena such as Transient Luminous Events, meteors and meteoroids, the observation of sea bioluminescence and of artificial satellites and man-made space debris. Mini-EUSO will map the night-time Earth in the UV range (290 - 430 nm), with a spatial resolution of about 6.3 km and a temporal resolution of 2.5 microseconds, through a nadir-facing UV-transparent window in the Russian Zvezda module. The instrument, launched on August 22, 2019 from the Baikonur cosmodrome, is based on an optical system employing two Fresnel lenses and a focal surface composed of 36 Multi-Anode Photomultiplier tubes, 64 channels each, for a total of 2304 channels with single photon counting sensitivity and an overall field of view of 44 degrees. Mini-EUSO also contains two ancillary cameras to complement measurements in the near infrared and visible ranges. In this paper we describe the detector and present the various phenomena observed in the first months of operations., 23 pages, 20 figures