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)

Abstract

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.