Rocket Observation of Twilight Airglow in the Near Infrared Region

Abstract

Twilight airgiow emissions in the wavelength ranges at about 1. 3 pm, 1. 7 im and 2. 2 pm were observed by a rocket-borne photometer. The heights of the airgiow layers and the local times at emission regions were derived taking into account the roll, precession and altitude of the rocket. The volume emission rates in these three bands were peaked at about 73 km. The mean lifetime of the 02(4g) molecules was obtained to be 332 minutes from the time variation of the airgiow intensity in the 1. 3 , um band. This is accounted for in terms of a combination of the spontaneous decay and the collisional deexcitation. The rate constant for the latter is about a half of that obtained in laboratory measurements at room temperature.

Rocket observation of near infrared airglow.

“…These bands are shown in Table 3 corresponding to each observed photometric system. The intensities of these bands are estimated by reference to the column emissivities calculated by CHAMBERLAIN and SMITH (1959), which give an approximate agreement with our previous observation (HAYAKAWA et al, 1973), taking into account the absolute values and altitude dependences of RoGERS et al (1973). The OH airglow fluxes thus estimated are compared with the observed results in Fig.…”

A half century of infrared astronomy — A personal recollection of the footprints in Japan

“…In the beginning, they observed airglow and zodiacal light in both the near and mid-infrared ranges by utilizing solid N 2 -cooled telescopes onboard K-9M rockets of ISAS. 105) Since the early 1980s, they shifted their target to background radiation in the near and far-infrared regions, and undertook pioneering work involving observations of the cosmic-background radiation.…”

The infrared spectrum of the airglow

“…The variation in decay rate has recently been further investigated by Evans and Llewellyn (1970) and by Evans et al (1970) and their observations confirm the seasonal variation in decay rate. The height distribution of the O z (IA) emission has been extensively investigated in a series of rocket flights by Evans et al (1968), Wood et al (1970, Evans and Llewellyn (1970), Haslett et al (1969), Megill et al (1970a and Hayakawa et al (1973). Some of the results are summarized in Figure 4.…”