Physics of the Aurora and Airglow

Book excerpt: International Geophysics Series, Volume 2: Physics of the Aurora and Airglow explores certain physical aspects of aurora and airglow. This volume is composed of 13 chapters and begins with surveys of the theory and spectroscopic and photometric analyses of radiation from the upper atmosphere. The subsequent chapters treat the geographic distribution of aurora and its physical processes in the atmosphere. Other chapters examine the theory of hydrogen emission in aurora, resonance scattering by atmospheric sodium, the excitation of the oxygen red lines in the airglow, and an atlas of the auroral spectrum. A chapter focuses on the analysis of twilight observations for emission heights. The concluding chapters discuss the theory of day airglow, as well as the spectral photometry and excitation of the nightglow. This book is of value to geophysicists, theoreticians, and scientists of the allied fields of geophysics.