Polar Orbiter Shows Evidence of Minicomet Bombardment
JUL 01, 1997
DOI: 10.1063/1.881803
This multiple‐exposure ultraviolet image, taken last September by the Visible Imaging System (VIS) aboard NASA’s Polar orbiter, shows a 500‐km‐long trail of something roughly 10 000 km above the Atlantic, coming in toward Europe and shining brightly at 130.4 nm, a prominent UV emission line of atomic oxygen. The VIS has also recorded many such trails at 308.5 nm, a characteristic wavelength of hydroxyl‐radical fluorescence.
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© 1997 American Institute of Physics
