Night Airglow Observations from Orbiting Spacecraft Compared with Measurements from Rockets

Abstract
A luminous band around the night-time horizon, observed from orbiting capsules by J. H. Glenn and M. S. Carpenter, and identified as the horizon enhancement of the night airglow, is detected regularly in rocket-borne studies of night airglow. Values of luminance and dip angle of this band derived from Carpenter's observations agree remarkably well with values obtained from rocket data. The rocket results, however, do not support Carpenter's observation that the emission which he saw was largely the atomic oxygen line at 5577 A, but assign the principal luminosity to the green continuum.

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