Discovery of a Nickel Oxide feature in the night airglow

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[0310] Atmospheric Composition And Structure / Airglow And Aurora, [0317] Atmospheric Composition And Structure / Chemical Kinetic And Photochemical Properties, [0340] Atmospheric Composition And Structure / Middle Atmosphere: Composition And Chemistry, [0343] Atmospheric Composition And Structure / Planetary Atmospheres

Scientific paper

Our recent discovery of an orange spectral feature in OSIRIS/Odin spectra of the night airglow near 87 km raised interest in the possibility of other meteorite metallic emissions in the airglow. The feature was positively identified as the chemiluminescent FeO* emission from iron with ozone where the iron is of meteoric origin. We have subsequently found that the FeO* feature is present in most of the OSIRIS mesospheric spectra. Since the meteorite source of atomic metals in the mesosphere contains both iron and nickel, it is expected that emissions involving Ni should also be present in the night airglow. The presentation summarizes the laboratory observations of chemiluminescent NiO* emissions and includes a search for the NiO* signature in the night airglow. A previously unidentified 'continuum' extending longwave of 440 nm to 580 nm has been detected in the night airglow spectra obtained with two space-borne limb viewing instruments. Observations of visible night airglow spectra were conducted with the GLO spectrometer on Shuttle and the OSIRIS spectrometer on the ODIN satellite. Through a comparison of these atmospheric spectra with laboratory spectra using a vibrational band model , the continuum was identified as arising from the NiO* emission. The altitude profile of the new airglow emission has also been measured with OSIRIS. The similarity of the altitude profiles of the FeO* and NiO* emissions also suggests the emission is from NiO as both can originate from reaction of the metal atoms with mesospheric ozone. The observed ratio of NiO*/FeO* was 2.3 from the GLO observations and 0.3 for the OSIRIS observations. The observed NiO* to FeO* ratio exhibits considerable variability; possible causes of this observed variation including the temporal variations of the composition of meteor showers are briefly discussed.

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