Ultraviolet spectroscopy of the Earth's dayglow and magnetospheric cleft

Thesis/Dissertation · Tue Jan 01 04:00:00 EST 1985

OSTI ID:5117065

Eastes, R W

This dissertation describes separation observations, made from sounding rockets, of the ultraviolet photon spectrum emitted by the Earth's dayglow and the magnetospheric cleft. The two sets of observations are complementary. In the dayglow, excitation is by photoelectron impact and ultraviolet solar photons, while in the cleft, excitation by energetic particle impact dominates. The different excitation mechanisms and energy spectra of the exciting particles results in significantly different spectra. These differences lead to a better understanding of the excitation mechanisms responsible for emissions in the Earth's atmosphere. The dayglow spectra are at higher resolution than any previous observations over a broad range of ultraviolet wavelengths. The observation of the cleft's emissions are the first sounding rocket measurements of the ultraviolet emissions from this region of the atmosphere.

• Research Organization: Johns Hopkins Univ., Baltimore, MD (USA)
• OSTI ID: 5117065
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

640201* -- Atmospheric Physics-- Auroral
Ionospheric
& Magetospheric Phenomena
640203 -- Atmospheric Physics-- Magnetospheric Phenomena-- (-1987)
71 CLASSICAL AND QUANTUM MECHANICS
GENERAL PHYSICS
AIR FLOW
DATA
EARTH ATMOSPHERE
EARTH MAGNETOSPHERE
ENERGY-LEVEL TRANSITIONS
EXCITATION
EXPERIMENTAL DATA
FLUID FLOW
GAS FLOW
INFORMATION
NUMERICAL DATA
ROCKETS
SPECTRA
ULTRAVIOLET SPECTRA