Engineering topics

Wells, W. K.

Publications and source records attributed to Wells, W. K..

4 records

NASA NTRS1992

The sodium and potassium atmosphere of the moon and its interaction with the surface

Results are presented from Apollo satellite observations (from May 1988 to July 1991) of sodium and potassium in the lunar atmosphere. The observations of Na and K show a wide range of scale heights, single-component temperatures, and surface number densities, while the column abundances remain within a factor of 3. The observed trends can be explained using a model of competing release mechanisms with different dependences on solar zenith angle and resulting two-component atmospheres. The theory is applied to the budget of atomic oxygen.

Sprague, A. L.↗

NASA NTRS1991

A Cassegrain echelle spectrograph

The 'LPL echelle' is a CCD spectrograph with a resolving power of 160,000 and enough sensitivity to detect the brighter airglow emissions in a few minutes. It uses an R3.2 grating in a novel out-of-plane mounting that permits any wavelength to be placed on the blaze. A single order is selected by a medium-band interference filter. Lower dispersions and broader wavelength coverage are obtained by replacing the echelle by a 600 line/mm grating or a Littrow prism.

Hunten, D. M.↗

NASA NTRS1991

Meridional Martian water abundance profiles during the 1988-1989 season

The Martian southern hemisphere atmospheric water vapor column abundance measurements reported agree with Viking Orbiter atmospheric water detectors during early southern spring and southern autumnal equinox; profiles obtained in southern mid- and late summer, however, indicate the presence of twice as much water both in the southern hemisphere and planetwide. This discrepancy is accounted for by the high optical depths created by two global dust storms during the Viking year, while the present observations were obtained in the case of the relatively dust-free atmosphere of the 1988-1989 opposition.

Rizk, B.↗

NASA NTRS1991

The structure of Io's corona

A spatial profile of the distribution of sodium in Io's corona has been constructed using measurements obtained during satellite mutual eclipses. The data reveal a fairly symmetric corona whose density falls steeply from the surface out to 6 r(Io) and more slowly outside. An upper limit of 700 km is placed on the exobase altitude, but the observations do not constrain the surface density. Several theoretical models adequately match some traits of the corona, but none satisfies all the observations. No strong upstream/downstream asymmetry of the corona is observed, so it is unlikely that the corona is primarily generated by the impact of corotating ions into the trailing hemisphere.

Schneider, N. M.↗