Earth’s ultraviolet emission spectrum

Image of the Day:

Earth’s Ultraviolet Appearance from Space

Click Image to Enlarge. Credit: ESA ©2009.

Click Image to Enlarge. Credit: SwRI

Click Image to Enlarge. Credit: NASA/JPL/SwRI

During the spacecraft’s approach, the Earth appeared as a crescent. The drawing (generated by the SwRI-developed Geometry Visualization tool) shows the appearance of the Earth as seen from the spacecraft. The red outline shows the orientation of the long slit off the Alice spectrograph. The image of the Earth was taken around the same time by the OSIRIS camera on Rosetta. The plot shows one of the spectra the Alice instrument obtained during this approach to Earth. Some of the emission lines are identified. Caption: SWRI

Related Links:

• NASA’s Rosetta “Alice” spectrometer reveals Earth’s UV fingerprint in Earth