Rocket Observations of Nitric Oxide Density Profile and Ground Observations of the 5200 Å Emission at Syowa Station, Antarctica (f. Polar Ionosphere) (Proceedings of the Second Symposium on Coordinated Observations of the Ionosphere and the Magnetosphere in the Polar Regions : Part II)
Geophysics Research Laboratory, University of Tokyo
Geophysics Research Laboratory, University of Tokyo
Institute for Atmospheric Environmental Research
The nitric oxide density profile between 72 and 120 km was measured with a specially designed ultraviolet radiometer making use of the resonant fluorescence in the γ(1,0) band near 2150 Å aboard a sounding rocket launched at Syowa Station (69°S, 39.6°E) under geomagnetically quiet conditions. The observed nitric oxide density was found to be much larger than those obtained at middle and low latitudes. It can be attributed to the after-effect of particle precipitations during the previous night. The 5200 Å emission from metastable atomic nitrogen, N(^2D), was measured at Syowa Station by the tilting filter method. The characteristic of observed 520 Å emission seems to show the dominance of particle impact excitations rather than dissociative recombination excitation.