Artificial auroral effects from a bare conducting tether

Details Artificial auroral effects from a bare conducting tether Artificial auroral effects from a bare conducting tether

Dec 1997

adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=1997jgr...10227257m&link_type=abstract

Journal of Geophysical Research, Volume 102, Issue A12, p. 27257-27264

Physics

Plasma Physics

7

Atmospheric Composition And Structure: Airglow And Aurora, Space Plasma Physics: Charged Particle Motion And Acceleration, Space Plasma Physics: Spacecraft/Atmosphere Interactions, Space Plasma Physics: Spacecraft Sheaths, Wakes, Charging

Scientific paper

An electrically floating metallic bare tether in a low Earth orbit would be highly negative with respect to the ambient plasma over most of its length, and would be bombarded by ambient ions. This would liberate secondary electrons, which, after acceleration through the same voltage, would form a magnetically guided two-sided planar e beam, and result in auroral effects (ionization and light emission) upon impact on the atmospheric E layer, at about 120-140 km altitude. This paper examines in a preliminary way the feasibility of using this effect as an upper atmospheric probe. Ionization rates can reach up to 105cm-3s-1 if a tape, instead of a wire, is used as tether. Contrary to standard e beams, the beam from the tether is free of spacecraft charging and plasma interaction problems, and its energy flux varies across the cross section, which is quite large; this would make possible continuous observation from the satellite, with high resolution, both spectral and vertical, of the induced optical emissions. Ground observation might be possible at latitudes around 40°, for night, magnetically quiet conditions.

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