Abstract
NEUTRAL wind measurements in the thermosphere have been made on many occasions using ground based photographic1 or photometric observations2 of artificial clouds released from rockets. These clouds are visible either through a chemiluminous reaction, such as with trimethyl aluminium (TMA) releases, enabling night-time observations to be made at altitudes between 80 and 150 km or through resonance emissions of sodium, lithium, barium or aluminium oxide when clouds are illuminiated by sunlight, enabling twilight or daytime observations to be made above about 80 km.
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References
Rosenburg, N. W., Golomb, D., and Allen, E. F., J. geophys. Res., 68, 5895–5898 (1963).
Rees, D., Neal, M. P., Low, C. H., Hind, A. D., Burrows, K., and Fitchew, R. S., Nature, 240, 32–33 (1972).
Bowman, M. R., Gibson, A. J., and Sandford, M. C. W., Nature, 221, 456–457 (1969); Gibson, A. J., J. Phys. E., 5, 971–973 (1972); Gibson, A. J., and Sandford, M. C. W., Nature, 239, 509–511 (1972).
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REES, D., SANDFORD, M. Thermospheric winds from laser tracking of sodium clouds. Nature 252, 291–292 (1974). https://doi.org/10.1038/252291a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/252291a0
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