International Geophysics Series, Volume 2: Physics of the Aurora and Airglow explores certain physical aspects of aurora and airglow. This volume is composed of 13 chapters and begins with surveys of the theory and spectroscopic and photometric analyses of radiation from the upper atmosphere. The subsequent chapters treat the geographic distribution of aurora and its physical processes in the atmosphere. Other chapters examine the theory of hydrogen emission in aurora, resonance scattering by atmospheric sodium, the excitation of the oxygen red lines in the airglow, and an atlas of the auroral spectrum. A chapter focuses on the analysis of twilight observations for emission heights. The concluding chapters discuss the theory of day airglow, as well as the spectral photometry and excitation of the nightglow. This book is of value to geophysicists, theoreticians, and scientists of the allied fields of geophysics.

The aim of this book is to describe and discuss the aurora as an optical phenomenon, one which can be observed by the naked eye as well as with more sensitive optical detectors. It continues the tradition of study ing that impressive and imaginative play of nature, the northern lights, seen and discussed by the Greek philosphers as early as the sixth century B.c. Today the study of the optical aurora is only one of many ways of acquiring information about a major phenomenon: the ejection of plasma from the sun, the interaction of this plasma with the geomagnetic field and the injection of fast particles into the earth's atmosphere. of the optical aurora is justified by the Hence, the separate treatment particular scientific approach: detection and interpretation of electro magnetic radiation, approximately in the 1000-100000 A region, produc ed through interaction between the auroral particles and the earth's atmosphere. Other techniques, such as radio observations, X-ray observations, direct particle detections from rockets and satellites, studies of magnetic storms, and measurements of the magnetic field and plasma properties in the magnetosphere, are as important or more important than the classical way of studying the optical aurora. Nevertheless, it was felt worthwhile to treat the optical aurora in a separate book, perhaps mainly because today one author cannot master the whole subject with sufficient competence. This book is thus one volume in a series of books giving a more complete picture of physics and chemistry in space.

Authoritative account written for the general reader.