From Prairie Skies to Outer Space

Shepherd, Dr. Gordon Greeley

ISBN 10: 1713267713 / ISBN 13: 9781713267713

Published by Independently published, 2019

About this Item

From Prairie Skies to Outer Space traces the author's story from the prairie skies of the Cypress Hills in Saskatchewan to becoming a space scientist, studying Earth's upper atmosphere, 80 to 300KM above its surface through observation of it aurora (Northen Lights) and its afterglow. The Earth s upper atmosphere, is the home of two spectacular phenomena, the aurora and the airglow. The aurora borealis (northern polar regions) and australis (southern polar region) is incredible beautiful to the human eye, and provides an enormous amount of information about the influence of the sun on Earth s magnetic environment, namely the magnetosphere. Through the sun s eleven-year cycle of activity, its little-understood longer-term variations, and its short-live flares it causes geomagnetic storms that can interfere with radio wave propagation, and disrupt power lines. For this reason its study is of great importance to Canada, as to other polar countries. The second optical phenomenon is airglow , produced by solar ultraviolet light which dissociates molecular oxygen to atomic form, driving an enormous amount of chemical activity, including visible light similar to that of the aurora, but at a level below the visual threshold of the human eye. But because it occurs continuously, all over the Earth, its study is extremely valuable in characterizing the state of the upper atmosphere. It can be studied from ground-based observatories, from rocket flights and especially through satellite measurements. These measurements include not only measurements of the airglow intensity, which provides information on the concentrations of atmospheric species, but other entities such as the upper atmospheric temperature and winds.

Seller Inventory # ABE-1735237253851

Bibliographic Details

• Title: From Prairie Skies to Outer Space
• Publisher: Independently published
• Publication Date: 2019
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1713267713
• ISBN 13: 9781713267713
• Binding: Soft cover
• Edition: 1st Edition
• Condition: Fine
• Signed: Inscribed by Author(s)

About this title

Synopsis

The Earth’s upper atmosphere, 80 to 300 km above its surface, is the home of two spectacular phenomena, the aurora and the airglow. The aurora borealis (northern polar regions) and australis (southern polar region) is incredible beautiful to the human eye, and provides an enormous amount of information about the influence of the sun on Earth’s magnetic environment, namely the magnetosphere. Through the sun’s eleven-year cycle of activity, its little-understood longer-term variations, and its short-live flares it causes geomagnetic storms that can interfere with radio wave propagation, and disrupt power lines. For this reason its study is of great importance to Canada, as to other polar countries. The second optical phenomenon is “airglow”, produced by solar ultraviolet light which dissociates molecular oxygen to atomic form, driving an enormous amount of chemical activity, including visible light similar to that of the aurora, but at a level below the visual threshold of the human eye. But because it occurs continuously, all over the Earth, its study is extremely valuable in characterizing the state of the upper atmosphere. It can be studied from ground-based observatories, from rocket flights and especially through satellite measurements. These measurements include not only measurements of the airglow intensity, which provides information on the concentrations of atmospheric species, but other entities such as the upper atmospheric temperature and winds.