The Earth’s airglow layer, when observed in the limb view mode, appears to be a double layer. LiVHySI onboard YOUTHSAT (inclination 98.730, apogee 817 km, launched by Indian Space Research Organization in April, 2011) is an Earth’s limb viewing camera measuring airglow emissions in the spectral window of 550-900 nm. Total altitude coverage is about 500 km with command selectable lowest altitude. During few of the orbits we have observed the double layer structure and obtained absolute spectral intensity and altitude profile for 630 nm airglow emission. Our night time observations of upper atmosphere above dip equator carried out on 3rd May, 2011 show a prominent 630 nm double layer structure. The upper airglow layer consists of the 630 nm atomic oxygen O(1D) emission line and lower layer consists of OH(9-3) meinel band emission at 630 nm. The volume emission rate as a function of altitude is simulated for our observational epoch and the modeled limb intensity distribution is compared with the observations. The observations are in good agreement with the simulated intensity distribution.

Date Published: 30 April 2016
PDF: 10 pages
Proc. SPIE 9880, Multispectral, Hyperspectral, and Ultraspectral Remote Sensing Technology, Techniques and Applications VI, 98801E (30 April 2016); doi: 10.1117/12.2223567

Published in SPIE Proceedings Vol. 9880:
Multispectral, Hyperspectral, and Ultraspectral Remote Sensing Technology, Techniques and Applications VI
Allen M. Larar; Prakash Chauhan; Makoto Suzuki; Jianyu Wang, Editor(s)