Astronaut Scientific Debriefings, 1962-1963

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LOS ALAMOS SCIENTIFIC LABORATORY
UNIVl:RatTY 01" CALll"ORNIA
L.09 ALAM09, NIIW MUICO
TO: Dr. Jocelyn Gill
-5-
DATI: July 13, 1962
From the repcrt 1n Science, I infer that for the layer reported,
(16)
or
(17)
giving
aNi • o.o4 ± 0.027
(18)
and
0N2 • 0.22 ± 0.15
(19)
Any such absorbing layer present during the day would result in rapid heating, and
•I
reradiation in the infra-red range from whatever bands may be present. However,
the absorbers postulated below would be destroyed by photodissociation and/or
heating during the day.
Hence, it is not surprising that solar spectra have not
shown such an absorbing layer.
StellarJplanetary or lunar spectra might show the existence of such a layer,
if the absorption spectrum has sufficient structure.
Setting
(20a)
we find the effective path length Xi.
(20b)
~ • 3.9 x 106 cm (starting absorption at
(20c)
.100 km altitude)
'