Observations of NO in the upper mesosphere and lower thermosphere during ECOMA 2010
In December 2010 the last campaign of the German-Norwegian sounding rocket project ECOMA (Existence and Charge state Of Meteoric smoke particles in the middle Atmosphere) was conducted from Andøya Rocket Range in northern Norway (69° N, 16° E) in connection with the Geminid meteor shower. The main i...
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ftdoajarticles:oai:doaj.org/article:bcca62da29874fe3a76dfc6997e57b4d 2023-05-15T13:25:45+02:00 Observations of NO in the upper mesosphere and lower thermosphere during ECOMA 2010 J. Hedin M. Rapp M. Khaplanov J. Stegman G. Witt 2012-11-01T00:00:00Z https://doi.org/10.5194/angeo-30-1611-2012 https://doaj.org/article/bcca62da29874fe3a76dfc6997e57b4d EN eng Copernicus Publications https://www.ann-geophys.net/30/1611/2012/angeo-30-1611-2012.pdf https://doaj.org/toc/0992-7689 https://doaj.org/toc/1432-0576 doi:10.5194/angeo-30-1611-2012 0992-7689 1432-0576 https://doaj.org/article/bcca62da29874fe3a76dfc6997e57b4d Annales Geophysicae, Vol 30, Pp 1611-1621 (2012) Science Q Physics QC1-999 Geophysics. Cosmic physics QC801-809 article 2012 ftdoajarticles https://doi.org/10.5194/angeo-30-1611-2012 2022-12-31T00:41:43Z In December 2010 the last campaign of the German-Norwegian sounding rocket project ECOMA (Existence and Charge state Of Meteoric smoke particles in the middle Atmosphere) was conducted from Andøya Rocket Range in northern Norway (69° N, 16° E) in connection with the Geminid meteor shower. The main instrument on board the rocket payloads was the ECOMA detector for studying meteoric smoke particles (MSPs) by active photoionization and subsequent detection of the produced charges (particles and photoelectrons). In addition to photoionizing MSPs, the energy of the emitted photons from the ECOMA flash-lamp is high enough to also photoionize nitric oxide (NO). Thus, around the peak of the NO layer, at and above the main MSP layer, photoelectrons produced by the photoionization of NO are expected to contribute to, or even dominate above the main MSP-layer, the total measured photoelectron current. Among the other instruments on board was a set of two photometers to study the O 2 ( b 1 Σ g + − X 3 Σ g ) Atmospheric band and NO 2 continuum nightglow emissions. In the absence of auroral emissions, these two nightglow features can be used together to infer NO number densities. This will provide a way to quantify the contribution of NO photoelectrons to the photoelectron current measured by the ECOMA instrument and, above the MSP layer, a simultaneous measurement of NO with two different and independent techniques. This work is still on-going due to the uncertainties, especially in the effort to quantitatively infer NO densities from the ECOMA photoelectron current, and the lack of simultaneous measurements of temperature and density for the photometric study. In this paper we describe these two techniques to infer NO densities and discuss the uncertainties. The peak NO number density inferred from the two photometers on ascent was 3.9 × 10 8 cm −3 at an altitude of about 99 km, while the concentration inferred from the ECOMA photoelectron measurement at this altitude was a factor of 5 smaller. Article in Journal/Newspaper Andøya Northern Norway Directory of Open Access Journals: DOAJ Articles Norway Andøya ENVELOPE(13.982,13.982,68.185,68.185) Annales Geophysicae 30 11 1611 1621 |
institution |
Open Polar |
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Directory of Open Access Journals: DOAJ Articles |
op_collection_id |
ftdoajarticles |
language |
English |
topic |
Science Q Physics QC1-999 Geophysics. Cosmic physics QC801-809 |
spellingShingle |
Science Q Physics QC1-999 Geophysics. Cosmic physics QC801-809 J. Hedin M. Rapp M. Khaplanov J. Stegman G. Witt Observations of NO in the upper mesosphere and lower thermosphere during ECOMA 2010 |
topic_facet |
Science Q Physics QC1-999 Geophysics. Cosmic physics QC801-809 |
description |
In December 2010 the last campaign of the German-Norwegian sounding rocket project ECOMA (Existence and Charge state Of Meteoric smoke particles in the middle Atmosphere) was conducted from Andøya Rocket Range in northern Norway (69° N, 16° E) in connection with the Geminid meteor shower. The main instrument on board the rocket payloads was the ECOMA detector for studying meteoric smoke particles (MSPs) by active photoionization and subsequent detection of the produced charges (particles and photoelectrons). In addition to photoionizing MSPs, the energy of the emitted photons from the ECOMA flash-lamp is high enough to also photoionize nitric oxide (NO). Thus, around the peak of the NO layer, at and above the main MSP layer, photoelectrons produced by the photoionization of NO are expected to contribute to, or even dominate above the main MSP-layer, the total measured photoelectron current. Among the other instruments on board was a set of two photometers to study the O 2 ( b 1 Σ g + − X 3 Σ g ) Atmospheric band and NO 2 continuum nightglow emissions. In the absence of auroral emissions, these two nightglow features can be used together to infer NO number densities. This will provide a way to quantify the contribution of NO photoelectrons to the photoelectron current measured by the ECOMA instrument and, above the MSP layer, a simultaneous measurement of NO with two different and independent techniques. This work is still on-going due to the uncertainties, especially in the effort to quantitatively infer NO densities from the ECOMA photoelectron current, and the lack of simultaneous measurements of temperature and density for the photometric study. In this paper we describe these two techniques to infer NO densities and discuss the uncertainties. The peak NO number density inferred from the two photometers on ascent was 3.9 × 10 8 cm −3 at an altitude of about 99 km, while the concentration inferred from the ECOMA photoelectron measurement at this altitude was a factor of 5 smaller. |
format |
Article in Journal/Newspaper |
author |
J. Hedin M. Rapp M. Khaplanov J. Stegman G. Witt |
author_facet |
J. Hedin M. Rapp M. Khaplanov J. Stegman G. Witt |
author_sort |
J. Hedin |
title |
Observations of NO in the upper mesosphere and lower thermosphere during ECOMA 2010 |
title_short |
Observations of NO in the upper mesosphere and lower thermosphere during ECOMA 2010 |
title_full |
Observations of NO in the upper mesosphere and lower thermosphere during ECOMA 2010 |
title_fullStr |
Observations of NO in the upper mesosphere and lower thermosphere during ECOMA 2010 |
title_full_unstemmed |
Observations of NO in the upper mesosphere and lower thermosphere during ECOMA 2010 |
title_sort |
observations of no in the upper mesosphere and lower thermosphere during ecoma 2010 |
publisher |
Copernicus Publications |
publishDate |
2012 |
url |
https://doi.org/10.5194/angeo-30-1611-2012 https://doaj.org/article/bcca62da29874fe3a76dfc6997e57b4d |
long_lat |
ENVELOPE(13.982,13.982,68.185,68.185) |
geographic |
Norway Andøya |
geographic_facet |
Norway Andøya |
genre |
Andøya Northern Norway |
genre_facet |
Andøya Northern Norway |
op_source |
Annales Geophysicae, Vol 30, Pp 1611-1621 (2012) |
op_relation |
https://www.ann-geophys.net/30/1611/2012/angeo-30-1611-2012.pdf https://doaj.org/toc/0992-7689 https://doaj.org/toc/1432-0576 doi:10.5194/angeo-30-1611-2012 0992-7689 1432-0576 https://doaj.org/article/bcca62da29874fe3a76dfc6997e57b4d |
op_doi |
https://doi.org/10.5194/angeo-30-1611-2012 |
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Annales Geophysicae |
container_volume |
30 |
container_issue |
11 |
container_start_page |
1611 |
op_container_end_page |
1621 |
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1766387721107931136 |