ИСТИНА

Recent in-situ spacecraft observations in the dipolarized magnetotail have revealed abundance of sub-ion scale (~ 100km) magnetic holes. Such holes are local electron vortices supporting magnetic field depletion and plasma pressure enhancement. In this presentation we discuss main properties of these holes, including direction of hole drift motion. Because, pressure gradients supported by magnetic holes can be a source of field-aligned currents, it would be reasonable to consider these small-scale pressure gradients as a possible source of small-scale aurora structures. We discuss one event of THEMIS spacecraft in-situ observations of sub-ion holes and conjugated observations of smallscale aurora structures by all-sky cameras. Comparison of spatial scales shows that we likely deal with the same structures captured by THEMIS and detected by cameras.