Imaging observations of lower thermospheric O(1 S) and O2 airglow emissions from STS 9: Implications of height variations

Limb observations of the lower thermospheric nightglow in the southern hemisphere were made on several orbits during the shuttle orbiter Spacelab 1 mission (December 1983) with the Atmospheric Emissions Photometric Imager (AEPI). Sequential observations of emission from O({sup 1}S) at both 2,972 and 5,577 {angstrom}, O{sub 2}(b{sup 1}{Sigma}{sub g}{sup +}) at 7,620 {angstrom}, OH (9-3), near 6300 {angstrom}, and the combined emission from the three upper states of O{sub 2}(A{sup 3}{Sigma}{sub u}{sup +}, c{sup 1}{Sigma}{sub u}{sup {minus}}, and A{prime}{sup 3}{Delta}{sub u}) which lead to the Herzberg I, Herzberg II, and Chamberlain band emissions in the blue and near ultraviolet were obtained. Stellar image patterns extracted from the images were used to provide absolute calibration of the limb emission heights to {plus minus} 1 km. The altitudes of peak emission heights were determined for portions of two orbits which covered a significant latitude range. The results show that the peak height of the emissions are not as constant with latitude as frequently assumed. The airglow limb height exhibited a variation of {approximately} 8 km for the first of the two night passes in the mid-latitude southern hemisphere. On the second of the two night passes the airglow emission layer was observedmore » to become lower as the orbiter moved southward, away from the equator, in agreement with the OGO 6 observations of Wasser and Donahue (1979).« less

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