Measurements of meteor smoke particles during the ECOMA-2006 campaign: 2. Results

Strelnikova, Irina; Rapp, Markus; Strelnikov, Boris; Baumgarten, Gerd; Brattli, A.; Svenes, K.; Hoppe, Ulf-Peter; Friedrich, Martin; Gumbel, J.; Williams, B. P.

doi:10.1016/j.jastp.2008.07.011

Cited by 30 publications

(46 citation statements)

References 42 publications

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“…It is also seen that light particles are "blown" away from PD by the shock front (white lines). This loweraltitude limit for Faraday cups was also found earlier by, for example, Horányi et al (1999), Hedin et al (2007), and Strelnikova et al (2009). Note that these simulations have a probabilistic character, which implies that number of trajectories should be calculated to get appropriate statistics.…”

Section: Combined Aerodynamic and Electrostatic Simulationssupporting

confidence: 81%

Estimate of size distribution of charged MSPs measured in situ in winter during the WADIS-2 sounding rocket campaign

et al. 2017

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Abstract. We present results of in situ measurements of mesosphere-lower thermosphere dusty-plasma densities including electrons, positive ions and charged aerosols conducted during the WADIS-2 sounding rocket campaign. The neutral air density was also measured, allowing for robust derivation of turbulence energy dissipation rates. A unique feature of these measurements is that they were done in a true common volume and with high spatial resolution. This allows for a reliable derivation of mean sizes and a size distribution function for the charged meteor smoke particles (MSPs). The mean particle radius derived from Schmidt numbers obtained from electron density fluctuations was ∼ 0.56 nm. We assumed a lognormal size distribution of the charged meteor smoke particles and derived the distribution width of 1.66 based on in situ-measured densities of different plasma constituents. We found that layers of enhanced meteor smoke particles' density measured by the particle detector coincide with enhanced Schmidt numbers obtained from the electron and neutral density fluctuations. Thus, we found that large particles with sizes > 1 nm were stratified in layers of ∼ 1 km thickness and lying some kilometers apart from each other.

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Section: Combined Aerodynamic and Electrostatic Simulationssupporting

confidence: 81%

Estimate of size distribution of charged MSPs measured in situ in winter during the WADIS-2 sounding rocket campaign

et al. 2017

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“…This means that owing to the density enhancement before the supersonically moving instruments (i.e., the "shock front") light particles are deflected away from the instrument and, hence, can not reach the PD electrode. This effect leads to an altitude dependent limit of detectable particle sizes which strongly increases with decreasing altitude (and increasing density) so that at altitudes below ∼80 km this type of instrument essentially has zero detection efficiency for small MSP (Horányi et al, 1999;Hedin et al, 2007;Strelnikova et al, 2009).…”

Section: Morphology Of Msp Observations During the Evolution Of The Gmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Among these are the nucleation of mesospheric ice particles (e.g., Rapp and Thomas, 2006), the mesospheric metal chemistry , the D-region charge balance (e.g., Rapp and Lübken, 2001), the heterogeneous formation of water vapour in the mesosphere (Summers et al, 2001), and even the nucleation of polar stratospheric cloud particles which play a major role in the formation of the ozone hole (e.g., Voigt et al, 2005). While some progress regarding the experimental investigation of these atmospheric trace species has been made over the past years with sounding rockets (e.g., Schulte and Arnold, 1992;Gelinas et al, 1998;Horányi et al, 2000;Rapp et al, 2005;Lynch et al, 2005;Barjatya and Swenson, 2006;Amyx et al, 2008;Strelnikova et al, 2009;Rapp et al, 2010), incoherent scatter radars Strelnikova et al, 2007;Fentzke et al, 2009), satellites (Hervig et al, 2009(Hervig et al, , 2012, and laboratory studies (Saunders and Plane, 2006), much of our knowledge about these particles still relies on model results (e.g., Hunten et al, 1980;Gabrielli et al, 2004;Megner et al, 2006Megner et al, , 2008Bardeen et al, 2008). Among other things, very little is still known about the physical and chemical properties of MSPs such as their composition and their electrical and optical properties.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

In situ observations of meteor smoke particles (MSP) during the Geminids 2010: constraints on MSP size, work function and composition

et al. 2012

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Abstract. We present in situ observations of meteoric smoke particles (MSP) obtained during three sounding rocket flights in December 2010 in the frame of the final campaign of the Norwegian-German ECOMA project (ECOMA = Existence and Charge state Of meteoric smoke particles in the Middle Atmosphere). The flights were conducted before, at the maximum activity, and after the decline of the Geminids which is one of the major meteor showers over the year. Measurements with the ECOMA particle detector yield both profiles of naturally charged particles (Faraday cup measurement) as well as profiles of photoelectrons emitted by the MSPs due to their irradiation by photons of a xenon-flash lamp. The column density of negatively charged MSPs decreased steadily from flight to flight which is in agreement with a corresponding decrease of the sporadic meteor flux recorded during the same period. This implies that the sporadic meteors are a major source of MSPs while the additional influx due to the shower meteors apparently did not play any significant role. Surprisingly, the profiles of photoelectrons are only partly compatible with this observation: while the photoelectron current profiles obtained during the first and third flight of the campaign showed a qualitatively similar behaviour as the MSP charge density data, the profile from the second flight (i.e., at the peak of the Geminids) shows much smaller photoelectron currents. This may tentatively be interpreted as a different MSP composition (and, hence, different photoelectric properties) during this second flight, but at this stage we are not in a position to conclude that there is a cause and effect relation between the Geminids and this observation. Finally, the ECOMA particle detector used during the first and third flight employed three instead of only one xenon flash lamp where each of the three lamps used for one flight had a different window material resulting in different cut off wavelengths for these three lamp types. Taking into account these data along with simple model estimates as well as rigorous quantum chemical calculations, it is argued that constraints on MSP sizes, work function and composition can be inferred. Comparing the measured data to a simple model of the photoelectron currents, we tentatively conclude that we observed MSPs in the 0.5-3 nm size range with generally increasing particle size with decreasing altitude. Notably, this size information can be obtained because different MSP particle sizes are expected to result in different work functions which is both supported by simple classical arguments as well as quantum chemical calculations. clusters, rather than metal silicates, are the major constituents of the smoke particles.

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“…In this way, the detector continuously measures the currents produced by the a-priori charged particles and, after each flash of the Xenon flash lamp, the currents produced by fast photoelectrons excited by the UV photons. The direct particle measurement is affected by aerodynamics, which results in an altitude and particle size dependent detection efficiency (Hedin et al, 2007;Strelnikova et al, 2009), while the photoelectron measurement is not. However, it can be contaminated by photoelectrons from the photoionization of other atmospheric constituents.…”

Section: The Ecoma Projectmentioning

confidence: 99%

Observations of NO in the upper mesosphere and lower thermosphere during ECOMA 2010

et al. 2012

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Abstract. In December 2010 the last campaign of the German-Norwegian sounding rocket project ECOMA (Existence and Charge state Of Meteoric smoke particles in the middle Atmosphere) was conducted from Andøya Rocket Range in northern Norway (69 • N, 16 • E) in connection with the Geminid meteor shower. The main instrument on board the rocket payloads was the ECOMA detector for studying meteoric smoke particles (MSPs) by active photoionization and subsequent detection of the produced charges (particles and photoelectrons). In addition to photoionizing MSPs, the energy of the emitted photons from the ECOMA flash-lamp is high enough to also photoionize nitric oxide (NO). Thus, around the peak of the NO layer, at and above the main MSP layer, photoelectrons produced by the photoionization of NO are expected to contribute to, or even dominate above the main MSP-layer, the total measured photoelectron current. Among the other instruments on board was a set of two photometers to study the O 2 (b 1 + g − X 3 − g ) Atmospheric band and NO 2 continuum nightglow emissions. In the absence of auroral emissions, these two nightglow features can be used together to infer NO number densities. This will provide a way to quantify the contribution of NO photoelectrons to the photoelectron current measured by the ECOMA instrument and, above the MSP layer, a simultaneous measurement of NO with two different and independent techniques. This work is still on-going due to the uncertainties, especially in the effort to quantitatively infer NO densities from the ECOMA photoelectron current, and the lack of simultaneous measurements of temperature and density for the photometric study. In this paper we describe these two techniques to infer NO densities and discuss the uncertainties. The peak NO number density inferred from the two photometers on ascent was 3.9 × 10 8 cm −3 at an altitude of about 99 km, while the concentration inferred from the ECOMA photoelectron measurement at this altitude was a factor of 5 smaller.

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Measurements of meteor smoke particles during the ECOMA-2006 campaign: 2. Results

Cited by 30 publications

References 42 publications

Estimate of size distribution of charged MSPs measured in situ in winter during the WADIS-2 sounding rocket campaign

Estimate of size distribution of charged MSPs measured in situ in winter during the WADIS-2 sounding rocket campaign

In situ observations of meteor smoke particles (MSP) during the Geminids 2010: constraints on MSP size, work function and composition

Observations of NO in the upper mesosphere and lower thermosphere during ECOMA 2010

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