The ionospheric source of the red and green lines of atomic oxygen in the Venus nightglow

► We have modeled the O2 + (v) densities for 11 SZAs on the Venus nightside. ► We predict the intensities of the O red doublet, the green line and the 2972 Å line. ► We find that we cannot reproduce the ground-based measured green line intensities. ► We find that the predicted red line intensities are larger than their upper limits. ► We suggest that the green line is produced by intermittent auroral excitation.