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Goddard Space Flight Center

Astrophysics Science Division | Sciences and Exploration

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Data

spectrum

472 KB TIFF image

Shown here is the near UV nightglow data from a rocket flight in 1962. (J. P. Hennes, 1966, JGR 71, 763.) The data has been adjusted to zenith and binned in 15 Angstrom bins. The total integrated emission from approximately 3000 to 4000 Angstroms is ~400 Rayleighs.

spectrum

513 KB TIFF image

This shows the entire composite UV nightglow spectrum, taken from R. R. Meier, 1991, Space Science Reviews, 58, 19. This shows the relationship between the NUV, MUV, and FUV regimes. The NUV is brighter than the MUV, but 0.5 times fainter than the FUV - which is mostly the Lyman alpha at 1216 Angstroms - in integrated intensity.

time variations

446 KB TIFF image

The variation in time of the nighttime UV (nightglow) is shown in this figure from Johnston and Broadfoot, 1993, JGR, 98, 21593. Four months of ground observations are shown. The top panel shows the nightglow of interest to OWL and varies by a factor of 3 over this time period.



This file was last modified 13-Dec-2002