Apollo-Soyuz ^sflwti

Pamphlet No.5: *****

The Earth from Orbit
(NASA-EP-137) APOLLO-SOYDZ PAMPHLET NO. 5: N78-27151
THE EAETH FROM OBBIT (National Aeronautics
and Space Administration) 67 p MF A01; SOD
HC set of 9 volumes CSCL 22A Dnclas
G3/12 24993
Apollo- This is one of a series of nine
Soyuz curriculum-related pamphlets
Experiments for Teachers and Students
In of Space Science
Space Titles in this series of
pamphlets include:
EP-133 Apollo-Soyuz Pamphlet No. 1: The Flight
EP-134 Apollo-Soyuz Pamphlet No. 2: X-Rays, Gamma-Rays
EP-135 Apollo-Soyuz Pamphlet No. 3: Sun, Stars, In Between
EP-136 Apollo-Soyuz Pamphlet No. 4: Gravitational Field
EP-137 Apollo-Soyuz Pamphlet No. 5: The Earth from Orbit
EP-138 Apollo-Soyuz Pamphlet No. 6: Cosmic Ray Dosage
EP-139 Apollo-Soyuz Pamphlet No 7: Biology in Zero-G
EP-140 Apollo-Soyuz Pamphlet No. 8: Zero-G Technology
EP-141 Apollo-Soyuz Pamphlet No. 9: General Science

The Arabian Peninsula and the Red Sea

On The Cover
as Viewed from Apollo-Soyuz
Apoilo-Soyuz
Pamphlet No. 5:
The Earth from Orbit
Prepared by Lou Williams Page and Thornton Page From
Investigators' Reports of Experimental Results and With
the Help of Advising Teachers

NASA
National Aeronautics and
Space Administration
Washington, D.C. 20546
October 1977
For sale by the Superintendent of Documents,
U.S. Government Printing Office, Washington, D.C. 20402
(9-Part Set; Sold in Sets Only)
Stock Number 033-800-00688-8
Preface

The Apollo-Soyuz Test Project (ASTP), which flew in July 1975, aroused
considerable public interest; first, because the space rivals of the late 1950's
and 1960's were working together in a joint endeavor, and second, because
their mutual efforts included developing a space rescue system. The ASTP
also included significant scientific experiments, the results of which can be
used in teaching biology, physics, and mathematics in schools and colleges.
This series of pamphlets discussing the Apollo-Soyuz mission and experi-
ments is a set of curriculum supplements designed for teachers, supervisors,
curriculum specialists, and textbook writers as well as for the general public.
Neither textbooks nor courses of study, these pamphlets are intended to
provide a rich source of ideas, examples of the scientific method, pertinent
references to standard textbooks, and clear descriptions of space experiments.
In a sense, they may be regarded as a pioneering form of teaching aid. Seldom
has there been such a forthright effort to provide, directly to teachers,
curriculum-relevant reports of current scientific research. High school
teachers who reviewed the texts suggested that advanced students who are
interested might be assigned to study one pamphlet and report on it to the rest
of the class. After class discussion, students might be assigned (without
access to the pamphlet) one or more of the "Questions for Discussion" for
formal or informal answers, thus stressing the application of what was
previously covered in the pamphlets.
The authors of these pamphlets are Dr. Lou Williams Page, a geologist, and
Dr. Thornton Page, an astronomer. Both have taught science at several
universities and have published 14 books on science for schools, colleges, and
the general reader, including a recent one on space science.
Technical assistance to the Pages was provided by the Apollo-Soyuz
Program Scientist, Dr. R. Thomas Giuli, and by Richard R. Baldwin,
W. Wilson Lauderdale, and Susan N. Montgomery, members of the group at
the NASA Lyndon B. Johnson Space Center in Houston which organized the
scientists' participation in the ASTP and published their reports of experimen-
tal results.
Selected teachers from high schools and universities throughout the United
States reviewed the pamphlets in draft form. They suggested changes in
wording, the addition of a glossary of terms unfamiliar to students, and
improvements in diagrams. A list of the teachers and of the scientific inves-
tigators who reviewed the texts for accuracy follows this Preface.
This set of Apollo-Soyuz pamphlets was initiated and coordinated by Dr.
Frederick B. Tuttle, Director of Educational Programs, and was supported by
the NASA Apollo-Soyuz Program Office, by Leland J. Casey, Aerospace
Engineer for ASTP, and by William D. Nixon, Educational Programs
Officer, all of NASA Headquarters in Washington, D.C.
 Appreciation is expressed to the scientific investigators and teachers who
reviewed the draft copies; to the NASA specialists who provided diagrams
and photographs; and to J. K. Holcomb, Headquarters Director of ASTP
operations, and Chester M. Lee, ASTP Program Director at Headquarters,
whose interest in this educational endeavor made this publication possible.

IV
Teachers
And Scientific Investigators
Who Reviewed the Text

Harold L. Adair, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Oak Ridge, Tenn.

Lynette Aey, Norwich Free Academy, Norwich, Conn.
J. Vernon Bailey, NASA Lyndon B. Johnson Space Center, Houston, Tex.
Stuart Bowyer, University of California at Berkeley, Berkeley, Calif.
Bill Wesley Brown, California State University at Chico, Chico, Calif.
Ronald J. Bruno, Creighton Preparatory School, Omaha, Nebr.
T. F. Budinger, University of California at Berkeley, Berkeley, Calif.
Robert F. Collins, Western States Chiropractic College, Portland, Oreg.
B. Sue Criswell, Baylor College of Medicine, Houston, Tex.
T. M. Donahue, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Mich.
David W. Eckert, Greater Latrobe Senior High School, Latrobe, Pa.
Lyle N. Edge, Blanco High School, Blanco, Tex.
Victor B. Eichler, Wichita State University, Wichita, Kans.
Farouk El-Baz, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C.
D. Jerome Fisher, Emeritus, University of Chicago, Phoenix, Ariz.
R. T. Giuli, NASA Lyndon B. Johnson Space Center, Houston, Tex.
M. D. Grossi, Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory, Cambridge, Mass.
Wendy Hindin, North Shore Hebrew Academy, Great Neck, N.Y.
Tim C. Ingoldsby, Westside High School, Omaha, Nebr.
Robert H. Johns, Academy of the New Church, Bryn Athyn, Pa.
D. J. Larson, Jr., Grumman Aerospace, Bethpage, N.Y.
M. D. Lind, Rockwell International Science Center, Thousand Oaks, Calif.
R. N. Little, University of Texas, Austin, Tex.
Sarah Manly, Wade Hampton High School, Greenville, S.C.
Katherine Mays, Bay City Independent School District, Bay City, Tex.
Jane M. Oppenheimer, Bryn Mawr College, Bryn Mawr, Pa.
T. J. Pepin, University of Wyoming, Laramie, Wyo.
H. W. Scheld, NASA Lyndon B. Johnson Space Center, Houston, Tex.
Seth Shulman, Naval Research Laboratory, Washington, D.C.
James W. Skehan, Boston College, Weston, Mass.
B. T. Slater, Jr., Texas Education Agency, Austin, Tex.
Robert S. Snyder, NASA George C. Marshall Space Flight Center, Huntsville, Ala.
Jacqueline D. Spears, Port Jefferson High School, Port Jefferson Station, N.Y.
Robert L. Stewart, Monticello High School, Monticello, N.Y.
Aletha Stone, Fulmore Junior High School, Austin, Tex.
G. R. Taylor, NASA Lyndon B. Johnson Space Center, Houston, Tex.
Jacob I. Trombka, NASA Robert H. Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md.
F. O. Vonbun, NASA Robert H. Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md.
Douglas Winkler, Wade Hampton High School, Greenville, S.C.
 Page
Intentionally
Left Blank
Contents

Section 1 Introduction ._.. 1

V? -. .- -: "• ./;• ,. j j
Section 2 Obsen&iti$rte of-the tarJh's1 Surface''.-.-.: 3
A. Cameras, Lenses, and Filrn 3
B. Earth Features and Astronaut Training 5
C. Ground Truth 7
D. MA-136 Earth Observations Results 9
E. Questions for Discussion (Optics, Earth Features,
Continental Drift) 19

Section 3 Aerosols That Affect Climate and Weather on Earth 21

A. The Balloon-Borne Dust-Particle Counter 21
B. The Laser-Pulse Radar 22
C. MA-007 Measurements and Photographs From Apollo 24
D. Results of MA-007 Measurements 29
E. Questions for Discussion (Climate, Radar, Optics) 29

Section 4 Oxygen and Nitrogen in the Outer Atmosphere 31

A. Layers in the Atmosphere 31
B. Spectrum Lines of Atomic Oxygen and Nitrogen 33
C. Absorption by Oxygen and Nitrogen at 222 Kilometers
Altitude 36
D. MA-059 Oxygen and Nitrogen Density Measurements 39
E. Questions for Discussion (Atmosphere, Spectrum) 45

Appendix A Discussion Topics (Answers to Questions). 46

Appendix B SI Units and Powers of 10 49

Appendix C Glossary 52

Appendix D Further Reading 56

VII
Figures

Figure 2.1 Storm Clouds West of Mexico Photographed by Apollo 4

2.2 The 70-Millimeter Hasselblad Reflex Camera 5
2.3 Camera Focal Length, Field of View, and Photographic Scale 6
2.4 Ground-Truth Areas for Experiment MA-136 8
2.5 Apollo Groundtracks and Earth Observation Sites
(a) Western Hemisphere 10
(b) Eastern Hemisphere 11
2.6 The Levantine Rift in Israel 12
2.7 The Nile River Delta 14
2.8 The Orinoco River Delta 15
2.9 Color Differences in the Simpson Desert of Australia 16
2.10 Internal Waves off the Western Coast of Spain 17
2.11 Cloud Strips off the Coast of California 18

Figure 3.1 The Balloon-Borne Dust-Particle Counter 22

3.2 Aerosol Density Versus Altitude Over Kansas City on
July 22, 1975 23
3.3 The Laser-Pulse Radar 24
3.4 Schematic Diagram of the MA-007 Sunset Measurements 25
3.5 Photograph and Brightness Contours of the Sun Near
the Horizon 27
3.6 Changing Shape of the Setting Sun 27
3.7 The MA-007 Photometer . 28

Figure 4.1 Temperature and Pressure Versus Altitude in the Atmosphere 32

4.2 Schematic Diagram of Energy Levels 35
4.3 Emission and Absorption Lines 37
4.4 Schematic Diagram of MA-059 Lamps and Mirrors 38
4.5 Motion of Apollo Around Soyuz at 150 Meters Separation 40
4.6 Motion of Apollo Around Soyuz at 500 Meters Separation 41
4.7 Motion of Apollo Around Soyuz at 1000 Meters Separation 43
4.8 Location of MA-059 Experiment Relative to the Apollo
Velocity Vector 44

VIII
1 Introduction

After 4 years of preparation by the U.S. National Aeronautics and Space

Administration (NASA) and the U.S.S.R. Academy of Sciences, the Apollo
and Soyuz spacecraft were launched on July 15, 1975. Two day slater at 16:09
Greenwich mean time on July 17, after Apollo maneuvered into the same orbit
as Soyuz, the two spacecraft were docked. The astronauts and cosmonauts
then met for the first international handshake in space, and each crew enter-
tained the other crew (one at a time) at a meal of typical American or Russian
food. These activities and the physics of reaction motors, orbits around the
Earth, and weightlessness (zero-g) are described more fully in Pamphlet I,
"The Spacecraft, Their Orbits, and Docking" (EP-133).
Thirty-four experiments were performed while Apollo and Soyuz were in
orbit: 23 by astronauts, 6 by cosmonauts, and 5 jointly. These experiments in
space were selected from 161 proposals from scientists in nine different
countries. They are listed by number in Pamphlet I, and groups of two or more
are described in detail in Pamphlets II through IX (EP-134 through EP-141,
respectively). Each experiment was directed by a Principal Investigator,
assisted by several Co-Investigators, and the detailed scientific results have
been published by NASA in two reports: the Apollo-Soyuz Test Project
Preliminary Science Report (NASA TM X-58173) and the Apollo-Soyuz Test
Project Summary Science Report (NASA SP-412). The simplified accounts
given in these pamphlets have been reviewed by the Principal Investigators or
one of the Co-Investigators.
For many years, airplanes have photographed the Earth's surface. Color
photographs and special filters have given more and more information about
the surface—temperatures, conditions-of crops and forests, amount of water
in the soil, minerals in exposed rocks, and so on. Starting in the mid-1960's,
NASA spacecraft have photographed weather patterns and detected water
pollution, in addition to obtaining the temperature, crop data, moisture,
exposed minerals, and so on. From Skylab in 1973, astronauts noted many
more features: wave conditions in the ocean, major geologic formations, and
conditions in the upper atmosphere. It was natural for the Apollo-Soyuz Test
Project to extend these observations still further.
Apollo and Soyuz were in orbit 222 kilometers above the Earth's surface.
From this altitude, observations could be made of broad areas of the Earth and
of the atmosphere above the horizon. Although Apollo-Soyuz was above
most of the Earth's atmosphere, there was some very low density gas even at
that altitude. Three experiments were designed to take advantage of the
Apollo-Soyuz view.
Experiment MA-136, Earth Observations and Photography, produced
hundreds of photographs, several reels of video tape, and a reel of movie film.
Many verbal descriptions were also made by the astronauts. The Principal
Investigator was Farouk El-Baz of the Smithsonian Institution in Washington.
D.C. He was assisted by 12 Co-Investigators, who are experts in geology,
oceanography, and meteorology. They came from various parts of the United
States and one came from India.
Experiment MA-007, Stratospheric Aerosol Measurement, was directed
by T. J. Pepin of the University of Wyoming. He and seven Co-Investigators
used infrared observations of the setting or rising Sun, as seen from Apollo, to
measure the amount of dust and droplets in the lower 150 kilometers of the
Earth's atmosphere.
Experiment MA-059, Ultraviolet Absorption, measured the densities of
atomic oxygen and nitrogen 222 kilometers above the Earth's surface. The
Principal Investigator was T. M. Donahue of the University of Michigan. He
was assisted by five Co-Investigators.
2 Observations of the
Earth's Surface

Aerial photographs of portions of the Earth are routinely taken from airplanes,
often for making maps or surveys. Orbiting spacecraft like Apollo-Soyuz or
the earlier Skylab have three main advantages over airplanes as camera
mounts. First, the higher spacecraft can "see" a larger area and can therefore
record broader features, such as the remains of an old volcano or a huge eddy
in the sea. Second, the spacecraft is almost perfectly steady; there are no gusts
of wind or "bumpy air" to toss it around like an airplane, thus smearing the
photographs. Third, the spacecraft follows a precise orbit over a "track" that
runs straight across the ground. Although the spacecraft moves much more
rapidly than an airplane, modern cameras are fast and some are built to
compensate for the spacecraft velocity.
Farouk El-Baz, the Principal Investigator for Experiment MA-136,
strongly favors astronauts' visual observations with "backup" photography.
He points out several cases where astronauts glimpsed features that did not
show up on the photographs, and other cases where astronauts chose the time
when the lighting was just right to take photographs that would show what the
astronauts were seeing.
The Earth observations were carefully planned to provide information
needed by geologists for studies of mountains, rivers, deserts, and continental
drift. Other information helped oceanographers to study sea currents and
meteorologists to study tropical storms and hurricanes (Fig. 2.1). Most of
these studies provide direct benefits to us ground-based residents on Earth.

A Cameras, Lenses, and Film

One objective of Experiment MA-136 was to check the effectiveness of
different cameras for photographing various features from orbit. Five cameras
and seven different lenses were provided on Apollo. The largest camera was a
Hasselblad reflex (Swiss built, see Fig. 2.2), with 70-millimeter film and two
lenses, one with a focal length of 250 millimeters and the other of 50
millimeters. The focal length of the lens determines the size or scale of the
photograph: the larger the focal length, the greater the enlargement (Fig. 2.3).
The field of view, however, is larger (on 70-millimeter film) when the shorter
lens is used. The 50-millimeter lens was used for wide-angle views, and the
250-millimeter lens was used for large-scale, high-resolution photographs.
Another Hasselblad camera had 60- and 100-millimeter lenses and was
mounted firmly on a bracket to take mapping photographs through one Apollo
window. This camera had an "intervalometer" to time the exposures so that
each photograph overlapped the preceding one by 60 percent. Every point
along the groundtrack was thus photographed at least twice, once from each of
two points in Apollo's orbit several hundred kilometers apart. Pairs of these
 overlapping photographs yield stereoscopic views from which trained
specialists can "interpret" such information as heights of clouds and moun-
tains and depths of canyons.

Figure 2.1 This photograph of an unusual cloud system was taken along the western
coast of Mexico looking westward over the Gulf of California. The land in the
background is Baja California.

JEM AL PAGE Lf:

OF BOOR QUAJUrrv
 The 70-millimeter Hasselblad reflex camera system. Figure 2.2

There were two smaller cameras: a 35-millimeter Nikon single-lens reflex

camera with a 55-millimeter focal-length lens (Japanese) and a 16-millimeter
Mauer movie camera (American). There was also a television camera for
real-time broadcasts from Apollo-Soyuz and a video tape recorder to record
television views of the Pacific Ocean. The color film used in the cameras was
specially prepared for the MA-136 Experiment by Eastman Kodak. A special
coating was used on the emulsion to prevent halation by blue light. (Halation
is the unrealistic haze around a bright object in a photograph.) More than 1900
photographs were taken from Apollo for the MA-136 Experiment; 75 percent
of them are of excellent quality.

D Earth Features and Astronaut Training

Except for photographs from orbit, we people on the ground never get a clear
view of large Earth features. A familiar example is the satellite weather
photograph shown on television weather newscasts, which reveals weather

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 Light from city on Earth
/

Edge i

Camera
Lens

Light from city on Earth

Edge Edge

T
im
ength

I
I
13

•16°

50-mm
focal length

-70-mm
11 -mm image of 57-mm image of
50-km city 50-km city

Figure 2.3 Camera focal length, field of view, and photographic scale.
 fronts and storm centers far better than any view of the clouds from Earth.
Oceanographers plot maps of water currents over small areas, a little bit at a
time. However, satellite views of the Gulf Stream along the East Coast of the
United States show vivid color contrasts between the colder Atlantic water
and the giant eddies in the Gulf Stream near islands and reefs. Geologists also
plot small-scale evidence of rifts or fault lines on maps, but they do not always
recognize the full extent of these features. Rifts and faults are huge cracks in
the Earth's crust where the rock on one side has slipped past the rock on the
other side. The slip can be up-down or sideward. The most famous slippage in
the United States is the San Andreas Fault, which runs north-to-south in
California and is easy to see on satellite photographs.
These topics were discussed in science classes for the astronauts—60 hours
of classroom time—during the year before the Apollo-Soyuz mission. The
astronauts also had 10 "flyover exercises" during which they flew in
airplanes over faults, sea eddies, and desert dunes. They learned how to
describe a fault line on a tape recorder and how to judge the color of seawater
or desert sand by using a' 'color wheel.'' The color wheel onboard Apollo had
54 reddish-brown colors and 54 bluish-green colors on a paper disk. The
astronauts selected the color most similar to the seawater or desert sand that
they observed and tape-recorded the color-wheel number. These color num-
bers were important because the color photographs might be underexposed or
overexposed and not show the actual colors.
During the aircraft flyover exercises, the astronauts experimented with
several pairs of binoculars and finally selected an X 16-power monocular for
use on the Apollo-Soyuz flight. This little telescope enlarged what they saw
below and helped them to identify features to report or photograph.
The purpose of all this training was to help the Apollo astronauts—Tom
Stafford, Deke Slayton, and Vance Brand—become well-informed in geol-
ogy, oceanography, and meteorology so that they would quickly recognize
features of scientific importance.

c Ground Truth
The Principal Investigator had consulted a group of 42 experts to decide what
Earth features the astronauts should look for and photograph. Some of these
experts were able to have measurements made on the Earth's surface to verify
what was seen or photographed from Apollo-Soyuz. For instance, several
groups of ships measured sea-surface temperatures, salinity (the amount of
salt in the water), water color, red tides (poisonous plankton in the water),
water currents, wind velocity, and cloud types. Figure 2.4 shows the 18 areas
where such "ground-truth" measurements were made while Apollo-Soyuz
 Figure 2.4 Locations of ground-truth teams for Experiment MA-1 36, Earth Observations
and Photography.

O Aircraft support ISRO - Indian Space Research Organization

D Oceanography support (aircraft support)
A Ground support
 passed overhead. Two airplanes flew across the United States and took
photographs from high altitudes to compare with the MA-136 mapping
photographs taken at the same time; several other airplanes did the same near
New Zealand and England. A team of Egyptian geologists mapped a portion
of the Western Desert of Egypt, which was photographed twice by Apollo-
Soyuz.
In every case, the MA-136 observations agreed with the local ground-truth
data, even though the MA-136 data extended over much larger areas. Some of
the ground-truth sites were covered by clouds when Apollo passed, among
them the site of the New England red tide off the coast of Maine. (The
astronauts viewed red water farther north in the Bay of Fundy but reported it to
be reddish-brown muddy water from rivers, not the bright-red color of the
plankton in the red tide.)

P) MA-136 Earth Observations Results

The numerous color photographs and astronaut reports will be studied for
years. Several important discoveries have already been made from them, and
more may yet be found. Figure 2.5 shows the locations of the visual observa-
tions, the photographic mapping observations, and the television video tape
recordings. Each numbered area (1 to 12) concerned a specific scientific
problem. For instance, area 11 is the huge ANZUS Eddy (for/4ustralia-/Vew
Zealand-t/nited States) off the eastern coast of Australia, and area 9 shows the
growing deserts of North Africa.
One important discovery is shown in Figure 2.6, a photograph of the
Levantine Rift. For years, scientists had known about this huge crack in the
Earth's crust; however, the Apollo-Soyuz MA-136 Experiment revealed its
full extent. The rift extends from the Gulf of Aqaba(at the northern end of the
Red Sea) northward through the Dead Sea to the Sea of Galilee in Israel,
where it splits into three cracks that fan out to the north and northeast. The rift
is probably caused by the counterclockwise drift of the Arabian peninsula
(away from Africa) around a "pivot" near the Sea of Galilee, where the rift
splits. Geologists find more and more evidence that entire continents have
"drifted" during many millions of years. For instance, North and South
America seem to have drifted very slowly away from Europe and Africa,
leaving a basin (the Atlantic Ocean) in between. Along the eastern coast of
South America, the types and ages of rocks (and the fossils in them) match
those along the western coast of Africa, and the outlines of these two coasts fit
 Figure 2.5 Maps showing the broad locations of the MA-136 Earth observation sites.
Small circled numbers represent revolution groundtracks for photographic
mapping and visual observation tasks; large circled numbers represent the
Earth observation sites.

60° visual observations

Mapping and visual observations
Television
i i
165° 180° 165° 150° 135° 120° 105° 90° 75° 60° 45° 30°

Longitude

(a) Western Hemisphere.

10
 Legend:
Visual observations
Mapping and visual observations
60°

75° 90° 105° 120° 135° 150°

(b) Eastern Hemisphere.

11
Figure 2.6 The southern part of the Levantine Rift, extending from the Dead Sea to the
Sea of Galilee, is distinguished by the linearity of the Jordan River valley (ar-
row). To the north, a "fan-shaped" complex system of curved faults character-
izes the rift. One prominent fault parallels the Syrian coast and then makes a
noticeable bend to the northwest (arrow) towards Turkey.
together like pieces of a jigsaw puzzle. The theory of "continental drift" or
"plate tectonics" is a complicated subject. 1 Geologists are looking for more
evidence for the theory on MA-136 photographs.
A more rapidly changing feature, the delta of the Nile River, is shown in
Figure 2.7. The Nile River flows northward from Egypt into the Mediterra-
nean Sea. Mud from the Nile has slowly formed the delta, and the fresh water
of the Nile can be seen in Figure 2.7 mixing with the saltier water of the
Mediterranean offshore. The delta of the Orinoco River in Venezuela is
shown in Figure 2.8. Muddy river water can be traced for hundreds of
kilometers out into the Caribbean Sea and the Atlantic Ocean.
The colors of desert sands, such as those shown in the photograph in Figure
2.9, provide important information about the ages of these sands and the
advance of deserts across the countryside. The bright-yellow sand is younger
than the red sand. The sharp line to the left of the center of the photograph
shows where the yellow sand is moving across the red sand as it is blown
westward by winds. Differences between this Apollo-Soyuz photograph and
Skylab photographs taken in 1973 will show the rate of advance. The chang-
ing pattern of the sand dunes is also being studied.
Photographs of Lake Chad, at the southern edge of the Sahara, show the
sand moving in toward the lake. This advance of the desert may dry up Lake
Chad and deprive the local inhabitants of water to drink and fish to catch.
Other deserts were photographed in Australia and Argentina.
A view of western Spain, including the Strait of Gibraltar, is shown in
Figure 2.10, which was photographed when the astronauts saw a series of
waves about 60 kilometers long in the otherwise clear blue Atlantic Ocean.
These waves are not on the surface but are deep in the water below. They may
have formed because of variations in the salinity (saltiness) of the water
caused by saltier water pouring out of the Mediterranean Sea through the
Strait. The waves were glimpsed only for a moment when the lighting ("Sun
glitter") was just right. They could be seen then because light is refracted
more by the saltier water.
Several of the mapping runs (Fig. 2.5) covered areas that had not been
accurately mapped before. One photograph revealed an ancient meteor crater
in Brazil. Others showed snow conditions in the Cascade Mountains and
glaciers in other parts of the world. Two tropical storms in the Caribbean Sea
and off the coast of Florida and many cloud patterns over land and sea were
photographed. One peculiar set of cloud strips is shown in Figure 2.11. No

'ESCP, Sees. 11-11, 11-12. (Throughout this pamphlet, references will be given to key topics
covered in these three standard textbooks: "Investigating the Earth" (ESCP), Houghton Mifflin
Company, 1973; "Physical Science Study Committee" (PSSC), fourth edition, D. C. Heath,
1976; and "Project Physics," second edition. Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1975.)

13
Figure 2.7 The Nile Delta is an excellent example of a triangular-shaped delta. Patterns of
surface texture and boundary layers in the water are easily seen in the Sun's
reflection. They possibly result from a density difference between the fresh-
water from the Nile and the saltier water of the Mediterranean Sea. Compare
this photograph with a map of Egypt.

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-, •

».,
The deep-brown color of the Orinoco River outflow is caused by both sedi- Figure 2.8
ments (mud) and rotting plant material. This turbid water was observed by the
crew as far north as the island of Barbados.

-;-/
Figure 2.9 There is a color gradient in this downward view of the Simpson Desert in
Australia. The long, thin, linear dunes of sand were described by the Apollo
crew as "hundreds of parallel road tracks." Such dunes form in bare, sandy
areas where the winds come predominantly from one direction. The lines of
dunes are perpendicular to this direction.

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 The direction of sunlight in this photograph has made internal waves visible Figure 2.10
(lower left). Located off the western coast of Spain, the waves were approx-
imately 50 to 60 kilometers long and were probably caused by variations in
salinity.

'*

Atlantic Ocean
Figure 2.11 Cloud strips off the coast of California.

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one understands how they were formed. They are too large to be airplane
contrails (streaks of condensed water vapor left behind airplanes flying
through humid air), many of which were observed over the Atlantic Ocean.

Questions for Discussion

(Optics, Earth Features, Continental Drift)
1. The normal human eye can resolve2 (separate) two objects 0.02° apart;
that is, you can see separately two lines 0.03 millimeter apart on a paper that is
10 centimeters from your eyes. How far apart would two rivers have to be for
the astronauts to see them separately from 220 kilometers altitude? How close
could the rivers be if the astronaut used his monocular to see them separately?
2. Apollo-Soyuz had an orbital speed of 7.4 km/sec. The Hasselblad
mapping camera with a 100-millimeter lens had a field of view of 38°. To
obtain a 60-percent overlap of successive photographs, what interval between
exposures would be necessary? If the 60-millimeter lens were used, would the
interval be shorter or longer?

3. Which camera-lens combination would you use to get the best resolu-
tion of Earth features?
4. If you were an astronaut describing the view shown in Figure 2.6, what
aspects would you emphasize? Remember that you are moving at 7.4 km/sec,
so your view lasts only a minute or two.

5. A ground-truth team is being sent to the desert shown in Figure 2.9.

What measurements would you ask them to make?
6. The American continents are drifting away from Europe and Africa at a
rate of about 2 cm/yr. How long ago were they together? (Geologists call the
original landmass—North and South America, Europe, Africa, Asia, and
Australia—"Pangaea." The southern portion was "Gondwanaland.")

2
PSSC, Sec. 8-8.

19
Page Intentionally Left Blank
3 Aerosols That Affect
Climate and Weather
on Earth

Aerosols are small droplets and dust particles suspended in the air. They are
carried to altitudes of 20 to 30 kilometers by winds and atmospheric circula-
tion. Their absorption and scattering of sunlight affects the climate and (at low
altitudes) the weather. Experiment MA-007, Stratospheric Aerosol Meas-
urement, used three methods to measure the size, type, and amount of
aerosols at high altitudes: (1) counts of particles by microscope detectors
carried in a high-altitude balloon, (2) measurements of light scattered back
from laser pulses directed up through the atmosphere, and (3) measurements
of the Sun's brightness as it rose or set, as seen from Apollo-Soyuz. The first
two ground-based methods covered altitudes up to 25 to 30 kilometers at
about the same time and in the same area that Apollo-Soyuz observations were
being made at altitudes up to 45 to 50 kilometers. The experiment dem-
onstrated that the spacecraft technique is accurate and that it will be useful for
determining the amount of aerosols at high altitudes. (Aerosol spray cans
produce the same kind of droplets as those detected in Experiment MA-007. It
is not these droplets however, that may reduce the ozone layer; it is the Freon
gas used in the spray cans. This gas slowly rises through the atmosphere, and
some scientists fear that its fluorine and chlorine may cause chemical reac-
tions in the ozone layer. See Figure 4.1.)

A The Balloon-Borne Dust-Particle Counter

Balloon flights are made regularly from a U.S. Air Force base near Kansas
City, Missouri. One flight was scheduled at the same time that aerosol
observations were being made from Apollo at sunset at 01:38 Greenwich
mean time (GMT) over Kansas City on July 22, 1975. A cutaway drawing of
the particle counter carried on these balloon flights is shown in Figure 3.1. A
stream of outside air is pumped through a concentrated light beam, and two
microscopes are focused on this point. When an aerosol droplet or dust
particle passes through, a bright flash is recorded in each microscope by a
photomultiplier at the eye end of the microscope. If both photomultipliers
give an electric pulse at the same instant, a "count" is recorded by the
electronic circuit. This mechanism is a "coincidence counter" (see Pamphlet
II); it uses two detectors to eliminate false counts. (A false count could be
recorded by one detector if a cosmic ray passed through the photomultiplier.
Another check of false "background" counts was made by filtering the
airstream for short intervals every 15 minutes. During these intervals, there
should have been no counts, and there were none except at very low altitudes.)
The pulse size of the photomultipliers shows how large the droplet or dust
particle is simply because a larger particle reflects more light. The electronics
were arranged to separately record the particles of 0.3- to 0.5-mi.crometer

fAGK

* 21
 diameter (small pulses) and the large particles (large pulses). (One microme-
ter is only 0.00004 inch.) The particle counts were radioed to the ground,
together with the temperature and pressure at each altitude, and were recorded
as a function of time. These records show high concentrations of aerosols up
to 5 kilometers (16 000 feet), then a sharp drop to about 1 particle/cm3. There
was a maximum of about 60 particles/cm3 at 18 kilometers altitude. Above 25
kilometers, the particle count was back down to 1 or 2 particles/cm3 (see
dashed line in Fig. 3.2).

Photomultipliers

Exhaust

(Light)

Figure 3.1 Schematic drawing of the University of Wyoming dust-particle counter used
for ground-truth measurements.

P The Laser-Pulse Radar

The "lidar" shown in Figure 3.3 is a 122-centimeter (48-inch) telescope
loaned by the NASA Langley Research Center for the MA-007 Experiment.
A powerful laser is mounted at the telescope focus and gives extremely short
pulses of 30 nanoseconds' duration. A flash of light leaves the telescope,
travels up through the nighttime atmosphere, and is scattered back toward the

22
Earth by dust and aerosols. The scattered light is collected by another
telescope and focused on a sensitive detector. The velocity of light is known;
therefore, the altitude of the dust and aerosols can be calculated from the
round-trip time (160 microseconds for an altitude of 24 kilometers). The
difference in color (wavelength) between the scattered light and the laser light
is also recorded; it is used to obtain information about the particles, such as
size and refractive index.
The lidar was set up at the U.S. Air Force base near Kansas City and used
the night before and the night after the observations from Apollo-Soyuz were
made. On July 22, the lidar recorded some cirrus clouds at 13 kilometers
altitude, as well as aerosols around 20 kilometers. On July 23, there were no
high clouds, and the aerosols again were detected at 20 kilometers.

30

MA-007 measurements

20 Balloon measurements

10

10 > 10"" 10-

Aerosol density

Aerosol density versus altitude over Kansas City on July 22, 1975. Figure 3.2

23
f

\
Figure 3.3 The NASA Langley Reserch Center 122-centimeter lidar system. It can be
used to measure distances to clouds, balloons, and airplanes, as well as to
aerosols.

Q MA-007 Measurements and Photographs From

Apollo
When light passes through the atmosphere, some of it is absorbed and
scattered by aerosols and some of it is scattered by the air molecules to give the
blue light of the sky. The atmosphere also bends rays of light, as shown in
Figure 3.4. This bending ("refraction") is caused by the increase in air
density at lower altitudes. The light travels slightly slower in the denser air
and its direction is changed, much like the way a car veers to the right when its

24
 Apollo-Soyuz Dibit

Obser vat ions

from
Apolio

Schematic diagram of MA-007 sunset observations. (The layers of the at- Figure 3.4
mosphere and the Apollo-Soyuz orbit are exaggerated for clarity.)

right wheels get into soft mud beside the road and its left wheels are still on
smooth pavement. Light from the setting Sun is thus bent downward like the
ray to point 4 in Figure 3.4, and the Sun looks higher in the sky than it really is.
This refraction by the atmosphere is similar to refraction by a glass prism. The
dense air low in the atmosphere is like the thick end of the prism. It slows the
light more than does the less dense air at higher altitudes, which corresponds
to the thin end of the prism. Just before sunset, the light reaching Apollo at
point 4 passed through air in layer A very close to the Earth's surface, as
shown by the arrow. This light was affected by aerosols at low altitude.
Earlier, light passed through higher altitude air to reach point 3. The MA-007
Experiment used measurements of the Sun's brightness for 1.5 minutes before
sunset to estimate the amount of aerosols in layers A, B, C, D, and so on. Of
course, the sunlight received at point 4 passed through layers B, C, and D as
well as layer A, so the calculation is complicated.
The refraction of the sunlight (bending toward Earth in Fig. 3.4) depends
on the change of air density with altitude. The MA-007 scientists measured
the refraction on photographs of the Sun taken with the Hasselblad 70-
millimeter camera (Sec. 2A) using the 250-millimeter lens, an infrared filter,
and special infrared film that recorded light of 8400-angstrom (840-
nanometer) wavelength. This gave a sharper photograph than ordinary visible

25
 light would have because much of the light scattered by aerosols was filtered
out. Figures3.5(a)and3.5(b) show one of these photographs and the contours
of brightness measured on it. The Sun near the horizon appears to be flattened
because the rays near the horizon (from the bottom of the Sun) are refracted
more than the rays farther up (from the top of the Sun). This makes the bottom
seem farther up, as shown by the ray to point 4 in Figure 3.4. Figure 3.5(c)
shows the apparent shape of the Sun expected from refraction; it matches
Figure 3.5(b) well. Figure 3.6 shows the apparently changing shape of the
Sun in the last 15 seconds before sunset. (The Sun set much more quickly as
seen from Apollo than as seen from the ground because the spacecraft had a
"day" of only 93 minutes instead of our 24 hours.)
The Sun's changing brightness was measured for 1.5 minutes before sunset
with the MA-007 photometer shown in Figure 3.7. This instrument was aimed
at the Sun through a window in the Apollo Command Module (CM) cabin. It
was a pinhole camera with a filtered phototube that recorded the intensity of
8400-angstrom light from a 10° field of view. The Sun is only 0.5° in
diameter, so the spacecraft did not have to be pointed very accurately. The
astronauts could check the pointing by the shadow of a pin on a white circle
(top of Fig. 3.7).
The photometer's 1.5-minute record of changing Sun brightness was
radioed to the ground and later converted to curves of aerosol density versus
altitude. The curve for sunset over Kansas City is shown in Figure 3.2, where
the dashed line shows the balloon measurements. The agreement is good from
17 to 23 kilometers altitude. The MA-007 Experiment shows more aerosols at
higher altitudes.
One of the Soviet experiments on Apollo-Soyuz was very similar to the
MA-007 photography. As mentioned in Pamphlet I, the cosmonauts per-
formed six experiments on their own in addition to the five joint experiments.
One of the joint experiments was the Artificial Solar Eclipse (MA-148; see
Pamphlet III) for which Apollo blocked (eclipsed) the Sun as seen from
Soyuz. The cosmonauts later used the camera from that experiment to photo-
graph the setting Sun and the stars seen near the Sun. By measuring the Sun's
shape and the distances between the stars in the sky, the refraction at different
altitudes was obtained. In this way, the air density at various altitudes was
determined. The U.S.S.R. has not yet released the results of these experi-
ments. In another experiment, the cosmonauts continued photography after
sunset to measure the zodiacal light (Pamphlet III), and they photographed the
horizon in other directions to detect "airglow." (You can see the airglow as a
blue haze above the horizon at the top of Figure 2.1 and on the photograph on
the cover.)

26
 Images of the Sun. Figure 3.5

(a) Photograph of the Sun (b) Contours of image

near the horizon. brightness in (a).

(c) Expected shape of the Sun's

image due to refraction.

-2.5 10 12.5 15 175

The shape of the setting Sun appears to change because of refraction by the Figure 3.6
atmosphere.

27
ORIGINAL PAGE IS
OF POOR QUALITY
Figure 3.7 The photometer used for making stratospheric aerosol measurements for Ex-
periment MA-007.

25
 Results of MA-007 Measurements
D The Stratospheric Aerosol Measurement Experiment on Apollo-Soyuz
showed that a fairly simple 7-kilogram instrument (the photometer shown in
Fig. 3.7) can check high-altitude aerosol densities in short observation times
before sunset and after sunrise on Earth-orbiting spacecraft. In addition to the
sunset over Kansas City, one other sunset off the coast of New Jersey and two
sunrises, one northwest of Australia and the other over the Indian Ocean, were
observed. The two sunrise observations showed 30-percent fewer high-
altitude aerosols in the Southern Hemisphere than in the Northern Hemi-
sphere.
Why should aerosol densities be so different in the two hemispheres?
Scientists attribute the difference to a volcano that erupted in Guatemala
during October 1974, 9 months before the Apollo-Soyuz mission. During the
northern winter, there is a general northward movement of the atmosphere
which, in this case, carried the volcanic dust and droplets at least 2400
kilometers (1500 miles) north to Missouri and New Jersey. Later, during the
southern winter (northern summer), the aerosols probably moved southward.
Combining the balloon data on droplet or particle size, the lidar data on the
color of backscattered light, and the Apollo MA-007 data on altitude gives an
estimated 1.43 for the index of refraction of the aerosol droplets. (This
refraction is not in the atmosphere but in the droplet.) The MA-007 scientists
note that this somewhat uncertain number is consistent with the droplets being
sulfuric acid (75-percent H,SO4 and 25-percent P^O), which possibly re-
sulted from the release of hydrogen sulfide (I-L^S) and sulfur dioxide (SO2)
from the volcano and the subsequent combining of these compounds with
oxygen and water in the atmosphere.

E Questions for Discussion

(Climate, Radar, Optics)
7. If the aerosol particles in the entire atmosphere were increased by a
factor of 10, how would you expect the climate on Earth to be affected?
8. In order to plot the number of aerosol particles per cubic centimeter
versus the altitude in kilometers, what do you need to know in addition to the
balloon-borne dust-particle counts?
9. With its 30-nanosecond pulses, how accurate can the lidar measure-
ment of aerosol altitude be?

29
 10. In the atmosphere, different wavelengths are refracted by different
amounts (Fig. 3.4). How would this change photographs of the setting Sun in
white light (such as Fig. 3.5(a))?

11. How large was the image of the Sun on the original 70-millimeter film
in the Hasselblad camera with the 250-millimeter lens?
12. Two successive sunsets from Apollo-Soyuz were 93 minutes apart in
time. If the first was over Kansas City (95° W longitude), at what longitude
would you expect the second?

30
4 Oxygen and Nitrogen
in the Outer Atmosphere

At 222 kilometers altitude, Apollo and Soyuz were almost outside the Earth's
atmosphere. There is a very low density gas there, mostly hydrogen, helium,
oxygen, and nitrogen. To verify their theoretical "models" of the atmosphere
(how it becomes less dense with altitude), scientists need measured densities.
These measurements were provided by Apollo-Soyuz Experiment MA-059,
Ultraviolet Absorption.

A Layers in the Atmosphere

The results of many years of exploring the atmosphere are shown in Figure
4.1. The heavy line is a plot of temperature (bottom scale) versus altitude (left
scale). The scale on the right gives the gas pressure in millibars (mbar),
starting at 1000 millibars, which is equal to 1 atmosphere or 100 kN/m 2 at the
Earth's surface. The terms in the figure are used by scientists to describe the
layers of the atmosphere, which can be thought of as "onionskins," each
completely enclosing the one below. In some parts of the world, such as the
polar regions, the lower layers of the atmosphere are less dense. The tempera-
ture curve in Figure 4.1 is a rough average near the Earth's surface where the
"troposphere" is changing all the time because of weather (winds, rain,
clouds, and storms).
At about 15 kilometers altitude, the atmosphere "calms down," and the
layers above are more stable and predictable. Above this "tropopause," the
temperature starts to rise because much of the Sun's radiation is absorbed in
the layers between 20 and 60 kilometers altitude. In these layers, the composi-
tion of the air is changed, as the absorbed sunlight breaks up oxygen
molecules (O 2 ) into oxygen atoms (O). Some of the atoms combine with O2
molecules to form ozone (O3), which peaks near the top of the ozone layer
shown in Figure 4.1. There is only a very small amount of ozone in that layer
(about 13 millionths of all the other gases in the ozone layer), but it absorbs all
the Sun's ultraviolet light of wavelength shorter than 3000 angstroms (300
nanometers).
In the ionosphere, pressure and density are so low that much of the gas
remains ionized. (Atoms or molecules lose an electron after absorbing ul-
traviolet sunlight.) The ionosphere was first detected more than 50 years ago
with early radar sets that "bounced" radio waves off the ions. Scientists
calculated the height of the ionosphere by knowing the speed of the radio
waves and measuring the time for the echo to return. Later, they found that
there are ionized layers at different heights, and they lettered them D, E,
and F.
Above the "stratopause," the temperature starts dropping because the gas
pressure and density are so low that very little sunlight is absorbed to heat the

31
 120
• Ionosphere •
;; E region;;

0.0001

100

0.001

80 001

0.1
I
OJ
60
1

40

10

20

100

Troposphere

1000
170 190 210 230 250 270 290
(-100) (-80) (-60) (-40) (-20) (0) (20)
Temperature, K (°C)

Figure 4.1 Temperature and pressure versus altitude in the atmosphere and the names of
the various layers of the atmosphere.

32
gas. However, the temperature starts rising again above the "mesopause" at
about 90 kilometers altitude. This outer, very low density layer is called the
thermosphere because it is very hot, as measured by the average velocities of
atoms and molecules. At the altitude of Apollo-Soyuz (222 kilometers), the
gas temperature is about 780 K (507° C). Information about the ionosphere
above 120 kilometers comes mostly from spacecraft and rocket measure-
ments. The pressure and the density keep falling, which causes the tempera-
ture to rise, and the composition changes (relatively more hydrogen and
helium—see Pamphlet III). The outermost layer, called the geocorona, is
mostly hydrogen and extends outward 50 000 kilometers, where it merges
with the very low density hydrogen and helium between the planets. In the
low-density regions, information about composition can be obtained by
observing the light emitted or absorbed by the gas, as revealed by absorption
and emission lines in the spectrum.

Spectrum Lines of Atomic Oxygen and

Nitrogen
Gases can emit various colors of light, and this property is used in neon signs
for advertising. Pure neon radiates a characteristic red light when excited by a
discharge in a sealed glass tube, and other gases at low pressure emit other
colors. A spectroscope shows "emission lines" in the spectrum (see
Pamphlets II and III); that is, the intensity is strong in a number of narrow
bands of wavelength (color), and the pattern of bright lines is characteristic of
the emitting gas. When light from a distant source passes through the same
gas, most of the same wavelengths are absorbed by the gas, leaving gaps, or
"absorption lines," in the same pattern. 3 The more gas there is along the line
of sight, the darker the absorption lines. Scientists measure these lines with a
spectrometer, which separates the different wavelengths A and measures the
intensity /^ at each wavelength. Astronomers use the measured wavelengths
of spectrum lines to identify gases in interstellar space and to estimate the
amount of each gas in terms of the numbers of atoms or molecules along the
line of sight.

'Project Physics, Sees. 19.1, 19.7, 19.8; PSSC, Sees. 26-2 to 26-5.

33
 The spectrum lines4 (both emission and absorption) were explained by
quantum theory in terms of electrons in orbit around the nucleus of an atom.
Each orbit has a different energy. According to quantum theory, only certain
specific orbits are "permitted," with energiesE,, E2, E3, and so on. These
' 'energy levels'' are different for each kind of atom. The spectrum lines come
from "electron jumps" between energy levels, downward for emission lines
and upward for absorption lines. In a downward jump, the atom emits a
photon. If the electron jumps from E2 to El, the photon has energy £2— Et =
hf = /ic/X, where h is the Planck constant,/is the photon frequency, and c is the
velocity of light. So, all the jumps from £2 to El give photons of the same
wavelength \. Different kinds of atoms have different £,, E2, E3, and so on
and thus emit photons of different wavelengths. This pattern of wavelengths in
the spectrum is often called the "fingerprint of the atom" because it is unique
to one kind of atom.
The pattern of absorption lines is the same "fingerprint" because that one
kindof atom absorbs photons of energy E2 -E, when it jumps from E1 to E2
and photons of energy E3 - E, when it jumps from E, to E3. These are the
same energy differences—photon wavelengths—as for the emission lines.
Thus, the fingerprint of the atom is the same in absorption lines as in emission
lines, with a few exceptions as noted below. Figure 4.2 is a diagram of
energy levels with the downward (emission) and upward (absorption) jumps
marked with arrows. For most atoms, the energy levels must be arranged in
columns (not shown in Fig. 4.2), and there are "selection rules" about
which jumps are most probable between levels in the various columns.
The lowest energy level, EI; is called the "ground state," and each atom
prefers to be in that state. If an atom absorbs a photon or is joggled into a
higher energy level by high temperature or by collision, it can emit a photon
and return to£, almost instantaneously. In the cold dark of interstellar space,
most atoms are in theE t level, so the jump fromE, toE 2 (which occurs when a
photon is absorbed, thereby removing it from the light beam) gives a strong
absorption line, called the resonance line for that atom. The same wavelength
will be emitted later because the atom "prefers" to be in the lowest energy
ground state. This reemission or "resonance scattering'' does not "fill in'' the
absorption line because the emitted photons go off in all different directions,
not just along the light beam from which photons were first absorbed.
In the laboratory, physicists have measured the probabilities for absorption
or emission of a photon by each kind of atom and the probability for each
energy jump. If 100 atoms are in the level E3 in Figure 4.2, the physicists

<PSSC, Sees. 34-2, 34-3.

34
 / (More states)
,
t.. , ; .1 '
,
£„ (More
jumps t

to and
from
higher
stales)

'Resonance
*^ line

ce
line.
*\

..
Downward Upward
jumps giv ng umps g ving
emission ines absorpt on ines

Schematic diagram of energy levels in one kind of atom and jumps giving Figure 4.2
spectrum lines. (The larger jumps correspond to shorter wavelengths.)

know that 20 of them will jump to E2 and 80 to £,, in less than a micro-
second. If 100 atoms are in level £, with many photons passing them (in
strong sunlight, for instance), 70 will jump to£ 2 , 20 to£ 3 , 5 to£ 4 , and 5 to
other higher levels. (These numbers are cited for illustration only. In actuality,
there are many billions of atoms, and the jump probability is not an even
percentage like 80 percent. The point is that these probability numbers are
known for most kinds of atoms and the resonance lines are the most probable
lines for each kind of atom.) Therefore, one can calculate from the intensity of
the£ 2 - £, emission-line strength how many atoms in the line of sight were
in the £2 level. The £, - £2 absorption line will give the number of atoms
in the line of sight that were in the £, ground state.

35
 A complete and accurate diagram of energy levels for an atom like oxygen
is more complicated than the one shown in Figure 4.2. Some 80 years ago,
physicists found that some energy jumps did not take place, and they called
these jumps "forbidden transitions." When the energy levels were plotted in
separate columns, it was possible to make "selection rules" stating which
transitions were "permitted" and which were "forbidden," all keyed to a set
of three quantum numbers associated with each energy level. Then astron-
omers found some of the "forbidden lines" in the spectra of nebulae—vast
clouds of low-density, glowing gas between the stars. They are still called
"forbidden lines," although the quantum theory now shows that a "forbidden
jump" from level Er to E, is not really impossible but just very improbable.
The atom waits for a second or two in level Er before jumping to El. Under
most conditions, the atom is bombarded many millions of times during a
second and gets joggled out of Er before the forbidden jump can take place.
That is why 19th-century physicists never observed forbidden lines in their
laboratories.
In very low density gas near the top of the Earth's atmosphere and in
nebulae between the stars, an atom may not be jostled out of level Er before
jumping to £, and emitting the forbidden line. The aurora (northern lights)
and nebulae mostly glow in forbidden lines of oxygen. The atoms of oxygen
are raised to the energy level £Vby solar-wind bombardment, and the oxygen
ions (O + + ) in nebulae get to their energy level E f b y similar electron
bombardment. The absorption of a forbidden line is possible but very
improbable, so we do not expect forbidden absorption lines.
A resonance line of atomic oxygen at a wavelength of 1304 angstroms
(130.4 nanometers) and a forbidden line of oxygen at 1356 angstroms (135.6
nanometers) are shown in Figure 4.3. Both lines are produced by a high-
voltage radiofrequency oxygen lamp. However, when light passes through
atomic-oxygen gas, only the 1304-angstrom line is absorbed. The same is
true for nitrogen with the resonance line at 1200 angstroms (120 nanometers)
and the forbidden line at 1493 angstroms (149.3 nanometers) (Fig. 4.3). A
nitrogen lamp produces both lines but only the 1200-angstrom line is absorbed
by nitrogen atoms. These wavelengths are short; they are in the far-ultraviolet
part of the electromagnetic spectrum (see Pamphlets II and III).

Absorption by Oxygen and Nitrogen

at 222 Kilometers Altitude
T. M. Donahue and his team planned the MA-059 Experiment to measure the
absorption of 1304-angstrom light by oxygen atoms and 1200-angstrom light
by nitrogen atoms between the Apollo and the Soyuz spacecraft. The basic
idea was to shine light from an oxygen lamp and a nitrogen lamp toward

36
 15 Nitrogen

Oxygen
'0
3) e
Nitrogen

0) £
or a;

Oxygen
lA I

: 00

50
T
115 120 125 130 135 140 145 150
(1150) (1200) (1250) (1300) (1350) (1400) (1450) (1500)

Wavelength, nm (A)

Emission-line spectrum (top) and absorption lines (bottom). Figure 4.3

Soyuz, where a mirror would reflect the light back. On Apollo, the intensity of
the 1304-angstrom line was measured and compared with the source. The
difference, after correction for mirror reflectivity, shows how much light was
absorbed by oxygen atoms between Apollo and Soyuz. The same is true for the
1200-angstrom line of nitrogen. The mirror on Soyuz was a set of seven
retroreflectors ("cat's-eyes"), each 3.3 centimeters wide. (These "cat's-
eyes" are better than a plane mirror because they reflect light back in exactly
the same direction from which it came.)
Light from the oxygen and nitrogen lamps was pointed at Soyuz as shown
in Figure 4.4. Each lamp faced a concave mirror that reflected a parallel beam
toward Soyuz. Part of the reflected beam returned between the two concave
mirrors and was focused on the slit of a spectrometer at the left. All the
MA-059 equipment was mounted on the side of the Docking Module (DM)
facing away from the Apollo CM, and Apollo had to be pointed so that the

37
 oxygen and nitrogen beams of light hit the retroreflector on Soyuz. This was
done by placing a bright white (visible) light in a position similar to that of the
oxygen lamp but above the plane of Figure 4.4. The astronauts could look
out a window in the CM, past the DM, and see whether the bright white
light was on the Soyuz retroreflector. If it was not, they corrected the CM-DM
direction with the reaction-control jets.
The spectrometer (off the left side of Fig. 4.4) was designed to scan the
four emission lines at 1200, 1304, 1356, and 1493 angstroms every 12
seconds. The intensities/^ were radioed to the Mission Control Center at the

From retforeflectcx

To retroceflector

Figure 4.4 Schematic diagram of MA-059 lamps and mirrors.

NASA Lyndon B. Johnson Space Center (JSC) in Houston, Texas. Because

the forbidden lines at 1356 and 1493 angstroms were not absorbed, their
intensities checked the reflectivity of the retroreflector, which was normally
about 0.8 percent.
One problem was Doppler shift (see Pamphlet IV). The Apollo and Soyuz
spacecraft were moving at an orbital speed v of 7.4 km/sec through the
oxygen and nitrogen atoms. If the line of sight was along the velocity vector,
the oxygen and nitrogen absorption would be shifted by AX = \\-/c, which

38
 would prevent oxygen and nitrogen absorption of the emission lines in the
light from the oxygen and nitrogen lamps. Therefore, it was planned to move
Apollo so that the beam of light to Soyuz was across (perpendicular to) the
velocity vector. The easiest way to do this was to swing Apollo around the
side of Soyuz, as shown in Figures 4.5 and 4.6. This was done three times:
once at 150 meters separation, once at 500 meters separation, and once at
1000 meters separation. The idea was that the maximum absorption of the
1304- and 1200-angstrom lines would occur when the Apollo-Soyuz line of
sight was at a 90° angle to the velocity vector v. At this angle, the reflected
beam at 500 meters separation was expected to be reduced by 41 percent
because of oxygen absorption and by 20 percent because of nitrogen absorp-
tion, assuming the densities 2 x 109 oxygen atoms/cm3 and 2 x 107 nitrogen
atoms/cm3. If the absorptions were found to be more, then the densities
would be higher.
Another problem was the emission of the resonance lines at 1304 and
1200 angstroms by oxygen and nitrogen atoms in the beam. This emission
would fill in the absorption lines a little—a few percent if the Soyuz mirror
(retroreflector) reflectivity was about 1 percent. If the Soyuz mirror were to
get dirty (as it did, in fact), the direct emission-line intensity would be
higher, compared to the absorption line in the beam reflected from a dirty
mirror.

n MA-059 Oxygen and Nitrogen Density

Measurements
On July 16, 1975, 27 hours after the Apollo-Soyuz mission started, the
MA-059 equipment on Apollo was tested while the outside door (off the
right side of Fig. 4.4) was closed. The door had small mirrors on the inside
that reflected parts of the lamp beams back into the spectrometer. Scans
showed that emission lines were of the correct intensity. After Apollo and
Soyuz undocked (separated) on July 19, Apollo moved 18 meters ahead of
Soyuz, and the cosmonauts uncovered (by remote control) the Soyuz retro-
reflectors. There were three retroreflectors—one facing up, one sideward,
and one toward the back—and the astronauts in Apollo could see all three
covers open.
During the next spacecraft night, the astronauts moved Apollo around the
south side of Soyuz and spent 10 minutes in the 33° arc, 150 meters from
Soyuz, as shown in Figure 4.5. The MA-059 lamps were on and the spec-
trometer was scanning, but the intensities of the 1200-, 1356-, and 1493-
angstrom lines were all zero! The spectrometer was working satisfactorily; it
detected the 1304-angstrom airglow emission of oxygen and checked out on

39
Figure 4.5 Illustration of the MA-059 150-meter data take. The symbol v represents the
velocity vector.

all four lamp emission lines after the door was closed. The scientists at the
Mission Control Center at JSC in Houston thus concluded that the sideward
retroreflector on Soyuz was too dirty to reflect far-ultraviolet light. (Dirt
could have gotten on the retroreflector during launch or could have come
from a nearby oil leak.) The scientists asked the cosmonauts to swing Soyuz

40
 Ahead Behind

Illustration of the MA-059 500-meter data take; v is the velocity vector. Figure 4.6

41
around to use the aft retroreflector on the second try.
During the next spacecraft night, Apollo moved 500 meters north of
Soyuz along the 32° arc shown in Figure 4.6, and this time the spectrometer
scans showed all four emission lines during the 10 minutes that Apollo
moved along that arc. However, after about 3 minutes, the intensities all
dropped by a factor of 5, which indicated that the aft Soyuz retroreflector
had just been dirtied. (Some oil probably leaked from Soyuz and spread
across the face of the retroreflector.) When the MA-059 door was closed,
the spectrometer scans were normal again.
The following spacecraft night, Apollo moved 800 meters above Soyuz
and along the 30° arc to 1300 meters above (Fig. 4.7). From these larger
distances, and in bright moonlight, the astronauts had difficulty keeping
Apollo aimed at the Soyuz retroreflector, so only a few good spectrometer
scans were made. Also, the calibration check with the MA-059 door closed
showed that the lamp beam was low by a factor of 4.
Apollo left the vicinity of Soyuz and made a slow roll with the MA-059
Experiment still on. During this roll, the MA-059 beam was facing 90°
from Apollo's orbital velocity vector v, but at first the beam was on the
forward side (Fig. 4.8(a)), where the oxygen and nitrogen atoms were
hitting the spacecraft at 7.4 km/sec. Later the beam was moved around to
the back side (Fig. 4.8(b)). As expected, the emission lines (1304 and 1200
angstroms) were more intense on the front side. The gas density was about
10 times higher on the "ram side" than in the "wake" of the DM.
After correcting as best they could for the changing reflectivity and beam
strength, the MA-059 scientists collected all the measurements of absorption
at 500 meters separation and the emission-line intensities that had been
measured at varying times. They concluded that the density at 222 kilometers
altitude is 1.5 x 108 oxygen atoms/cm3 with an error of ±20 percent and
8.6 x 106 nitrogen atoms/cm3 with an error of ±25 percent. These densities
are consistent with measurements made at 340 kilometers altitude by the
NASA unmanned Atmosphere Explorer satellite.

42
1400 r-

1200 -

1000 -

800 -

600 -

400 -

200 -

200 -

4 on
1000 800 600 400 200 200 400

Horizontal distance, m

Illustration of the MA-059 1000-meter data take; v is the velocity vector. Figure 4.7

43
Figure 4.8 Location of MA-059 Experiment relative to the Apollo velocity vector. The
dashed lines show the direction of the beam of light.

44
p Questions for Discussion
(Atmosphere, Spectrum)

13. By what processes are gases in the lowest layer of the atmosphere
(Fig. 4.1) heated? Why are troposphere temperatures near the Equator higher
than troposphere temperatures near the poles?

14. If the gas temperature is more than 773 K (500° C) at 222 kilometers
altitude, why weren't the Apollo and Soyuz spacecraft unbearably hot?
15. If a radio pulse is reflected from the mesosphere (Fig. 4.1), what is
the echo delay?
16. If an atom has just six energy levels (£,, E2, E3, E4, E., and£ 6 ) and
all jumps are allowed, how many spectrum lines can the atom absorb and
reemit?
17. The oxygen lamp used in the MA-059 Experiment produced many
weaker emission lines at longer wavelengths (off the right side of Fig. 4.3).
Why wasn't one of these lines used to measure oxygen-atom density instead
of the 1304-angstrom line?
18. The MA-059 Experiment used three different separations of Apollo
and Soyuz: 150, 500, and 1000 meters. What advantage comes with larger
separation? What disadvantages would you expect?
19. How could the dirty-retroreflector problem be avoided?

45
Appendix A

Discussion Topics (Answers to Questions)

1. (Sec. 2E) The river separation x is the small side of a triangle 220
kilometers long. This triangle is similar to the line separation of 0.03 millime-
ter on a paper 10 centimeters away. So, Jt/220 kilometers = 0.03 millimeter/
10 centimeters = sin 0.017°, and A: = 66 meters. The monocular was " x 16
power," which enlarges angles 16times. Sothe66-meterriverseparationjust
perceptible to the naked eye was reduced to 66/16 = 4.1 meters perceptible
with the monocular.
2. (Sec. 2E) The 38° field of view of the camera corresponds to 144
kilometers on the ground. (From the center to the edge is 19°, and 222 sin 19°
equals 72 kilometers; thus, edge-to-edge is 144 kilometers.) To obtain a
60-percent overlap, you would want photographs that were 40 percent of 144
or 57.5 kilometers apart. The time for Apollo-Soyuz to move 57.5 kilometers
is 57.5/7.4 = 7.8 seconds. If the 60-millimeter lens were used, the field of
view on the ground would be (100/60)144 = 240 kilometers, and the interval
would be 13 seconds.
3. (Sec. 2E) The Hasselblad with the 250-millimeter lens gives the largest
scale (Fig. 2.3) and therefore the best resolution.

4. (Sec. 2E) "The one thing I noticed was that . . . line on the left up near
the end . . . makes a bend to the left and follows a new tectonic line or fault
which goes along parallel to the Turkish coast. In other words, the one on the
left, number 1, goes up ... and then makes a left turn and parallels the Turkish
coast. [Number] two seems to be obscured and it just ends in a lot of jumbled
country . . . and it seems to end right in this jumbled area. [Number] three, I
could trace clear up to a river which—I'll have to see a map later. But I could
trace the faults out, going rather eastward. You could see them through the
valley silt, clear up to a river which must be inland in either Syria or Turkey.
So the overall pattern of these is a fan; [number] three going almost eastward,
and [number] one bending finally to the north, and [number] two going to the
northeast." (Verbal comments made during the mission by Astronaut Vance
D. Brand.) Other reports referred to colors on the color wheel.
5. (Sec. 2E) In Figure 2.9, there is a sharp division between red sand and
yellow sand to the left of the center. The ground-truth teams should measure
the surface color on either side of this line and also analyze the sand for
evidence of its age. An accurate survey of the latitude and longitude of at least
two points along the red-yellow division is needed to pinpoint map coordi-
nates in Figure 2.9.
6. (Sec. 2E) The distance (roughly along the Equator) from the eastern tip

46
of South America to the "dent" in West Africa (near the Congo River) where
it came from is about 5000 kilometers. At 2 cm/yr, this continental drift would
take 5 x 108 centimeters/(2 cm/yr) = 2.5 x 108 years, or 250 million years.
7. (Sec. 3E) Aerosols at high altitude scatter sunlight and reduce the
amount reaching the Earth's surface. Therefore, a higher aerosol count would
decrease the surface temperature.
8. (Sec. 3E) In addition to the dust-particle counts per second, you need to
know the volume of air pumped through the dust-particle countereach second.
You also need the conversion from measured outside air pressure to altitude.
9. (Sec. 3E) The time up and back can be measured with an error of 30
nanoseconds, so the time up to the aerosol is in error by only 15 nanoseconds.
The speed of light c is 3 x 108 m/sec; therefore, in 15 x 10~ 9 seconds, light
moves (15 x 10~ 9 ) (3 x 108) = 5 x 10 ' or 0.5 meter. The error in altitude
thus is 50 centimeters.
10. (Sec. 3E) Blue light is refracted more than red light, with other colors
in between (see Pamphlet II). White-light photographs of the setting Sun
would be blue on top and red on the bottom. A star would show a small
spectrum from blue on top through green, yellow, and orange to red on
the bottom.

11. (Sec. 3E) The Sun as seen from the Earth or from Apollo is 0.5° in
diameter. In the triangle from lens to film, the size of the Sun's image isequal
to 250 millimeters sin 0.5° = (250 millimeters) (0.0087) = 2 . 2 millimeters in
diameter.
12. (Sec. 3E) In 93 minutes, the Earth rotates eastward (93 minutes/24
hours) 360° = 23°. So the second sunset would be 23° farther west at 95° W +
23° = 118° W (west of Mexico).
13. (Sec. 4E) In the troposphere, just above the Earth's surface, the air is
heated by the surface, which derives its heat from the Sun's light and from
infrared radiation that penetrates the atmosphere. The surface passes heat to
the air directly by conduction and by radiation in long-wave infrared rays.
Hot air rising from near the surface carries heat to higher altitudes by
convection. Near the Equator, sunlight strikes the Earth's surface almost
perpendicular to the surface, which gives the surface more heat per unit area
than at higher latitudes.

14. (Sec. 4E) The high temperature of a very low density gas is misleading.
Because the number of atoms, ions, and molecules in 1 cubic meter is low, the

47
total energy per cubic meter is low also, and the thermal energy received by
Apollo-Soyuz was therefore very small. The spacecraft lost energy and was
cooled by radiation. The spacecraft temperature was controlled by the balance
between incoming solar radiation and outgoing spacecraft radiation. The
incoming solar radiation was reduced by reflective "radiation shields" of
metal-covered plastic sheets.
15. (Sec. 4E) The mesosphere is at 90 kilometers altitude (Fig. 4.1), so the
distance up and back is 180 kilometers. The round-trip radio pulse time is
180 kilometers/c = 180 kilometers/ (3 x 108 m/sec) =6 x 10~ 4 seconds,
or an 0.0006-second echo delay.
16. (Sec. 4E) "Jumps" or "transitions" are possible between each pair of
the six levels. An upward jump absorbs the same spectrum line as the
downward jump emits between any two energy levels. Therefore, there are
five downward jumps to £r four to £2> three to Ea, two to £4, and one to E5
for a total of 15 spectrum lines. Real atoms have many more levels and
spectrum lines than this simplified example.

17. (Sec. 4E) The weaker lines at longer wavelengths would be less effi-
cient detectors of oxygen atoms; that is, there would be less intensity absorbed
per atom in the beam between Apollo and Soyuz. Because the objective was to
measure the number of oxygen atoms, the strongest ("resonance") line at
1304 angstroms was best.
18. (Sec. 4E) With larger separation, there were more oxygen and nitrogen
atoms in the beam between Apollo and Soyuz, and the absorption could be
measured more accurately. This advantage was offset by the difficulty of
aiming the lamp beam to hit the 10-centimeter retrorefleeter on Soyuz when it
was 1000 meters away.
19. (Sec. 4E) Preventing oil leaks and other contamination around Soyuz is
the obvious way to keep the retroreflector clean. Another solution would be to
eliminate the retroreflector and put the lamps on one spacecraft and the
spectrometer on the other.

48
Appendix B
SI Units
Powers of 10

International System (SI) Units

Names, symbols, and conversion factors of SI units used in these pamphlets:

Quantity Name of unit Symbol Conversion factor

Distance meter m km = 0.621 mile

m = 3.28 ft
cm = 0.394 in.
mm = = 0.039 in.
/urn = = 3.9ox 10~5 in. = 104 A
nm = 10 A

Mass kilogram kg tonne = 1.102 tons

kg = 2.20 Ib
gm = 0.0022 Ib = 0.035 oz
5
mg = 2.20x 10-«lb= 3.5x lQ- oz

Time second sec yr = 3.156 x 107 sec

day = = 8.64 x 104 sec
hr = 3600 sec

Temperature kelvin K 273 K = = 0° C = 32° F

373 K = = 100° C = 212° F

Area square meter m2 1 m2 = 104 cm2 = 10.8 ft2

Volume cubic meter m3 1 m3 = 10s cm3 = 35 ft3

Frequency hertz Hz Hz = 1 cycle/sec

kHz = = 1000 cycles/sec
MHz = 106 cycles/ sec

Density kilogram per kg/m3 kg/m 3 = 0.001 gm/cm3

cubic meter gm/cm3 = density of water

Speed, velocity meter per second m/sec 1 m/sec = 3.28 ft/sec

1 km/sec = 2240 mi/hr

Force newton N 1 N = 10s dynes =0.224 Ibf

49
Quantity Name of unit Symbol Conversion factor

Pressure newton per square N/m2 1 N/m2 = 1.45 x lO'4 lb/in2

meter

Energy joule J 1 J = 0.239 calorie

Photon energy electronvolt eV 1 eV = 1.60 x 10'19 J; 1 J = 107 erg

Power watt W 1 W = 1 J/sec

Atomic mass atomic mass unit amu 1 amu = 1.66 x 10~27 kg

Customary Units Used With the SI Units

Quantity Name of unit Symbol Conversion factor

Wavelength of angstrom A 1 A = 0.1 nm = IQ-' 0 m

light

Acceleration g g 1 g = 9.8 m/sec2

of gravity

50
Unit Prefixes

Prefix Abbreviation Factor by which unit

is multiplied

tera T IO 1 2

giga G IO 9

mega M IO6

kilo k IO3

hecto h IO2

centi c IO- 2

milli m IO- 3

micro M io- 6
nano n IO- 9

pico p IO- 12

Powers of 10

Increasing Decreasing

102 = 100 io- 2 = i/ioo = o.oi

103 = 1 000 io-3 = 1/1000 = o.ooi
10" = 10 000, etc. 10-" = 1/10 000 = 0.000 1, etc.

Examples: Example:

2 x IO6 = 2 000 000 5.67 x IO- 5 = 0.000 056 7

2 x IO 30 = 2 followed by 30 zeros

51
Appendix C

Glossary
References to sections, Appendix A (answers to questions), and figures are
included in the entries. Those in italic type are the most helpful.
absorption line a gap or dip in a spectrum, caused by the absorption of
specific wavelengths by a gas between a light source and the observer.
(Sees. 4A to 4C; App. A, nos. 16, 18; Figs. 4.2, 4.3)
aerosol very small particles of dust or droplets of liquid suspended in the
Earth's atmosphere. (Sees. 1, 3, 3A to 3D; App. A, nos. 7 to 9; Figs. 3.2,
3.3, 3.7)
altitude distance above the Earth's surface. (Sees. 3 to 3C, 4, 4A; App. A,
nos. 8, 9, 15; Figs. 3.2, 3.6,4.1)
angstrom (A) a unit of wavelength used by physicists for more than 80 years;
1 angstrom = 10 10 meter or 0.1 nanometer.
Apollo-Soyuz a joint U.S.-U.S.S.R. mission from July 15 to July 24, 1975.
Apollo, the three-man U.S. spacecraft, consisted of the Command Module
(CM) connected to the Service Module (SM) and the Docking Module
(DM). For 2 days, the DM was attached to Soyuz, the two-man Soviet
spacecraft. The two spacecraft were in a circular orbit inclined 51.8° to the
Equator, with a 93-minute period, 222 kilometers above the Earth's
surface. See groundtrack, orbit, and Pamphlet I.
c the velocity of light and all other electromagnetic waves in a vacuum,
3 x 108 m/sec. (Sec. 4B; App. A, nos. 9, 15)
climate the weather conditions of a region (temperature, humidity, cloudi-
ness, rainfall, snowfall, sunshine, and winds) throughout the year,
averaged over several years. (Sec. 3; App. A, no. 7)
color wheel a device for describing visual color by number. (Sec. 2B)
concave mirror an optical component that acts like a lens, forming images
or giving parallel rays from a point source of light at its focus. (Sec. 4C)
continental drift the very slow motion of continents and the sea floors
adjacent to them (plates). (Sees. 2, 2D, 2E; App. A, no. 6)
contour a line connecting points of equal value, such as altitude on a map or
brightness on a photograph. (Sec. 3C; Fig. 3.5(b))
count one pulse of current or voltage from a detector, indicating the passage
of a photon or particle through the detector. (Sees. 3, 3A; App. A, nos. 7, 8;
Fig. 3.1)
Docking Module (DM) a special component added to the Apollo spacecraft
so that it could be joined with Soyuz. (Sec. 4C; Fig. 4.8) See Pamphlet I.
Doppler shift the change of frequency/and wavelength X in the spectrum of a
source approaching an observer (blue shift) or receding from him (red shift).
The change in wavelength is AX =Xv/c, where v is the velocity of approach
or recession. (Sec. 4C) See Pamphlet IV.

52
emission line a small band of wavelengths emitted by a low-density gas when
it glows. The pattern of several emission lines is characteristic of the gas
and is the same as the absorption lines absorbed by that gas from light
passing through it. (Sees. 4A, 4B, 4C to 4E; App. A, nos. 16, 17;
Figs. 4.2,4.3)
energy level a specific internal energy that one kind of atom can have. The
quantum theory explains and predicts discrete (separate) energy levels for
each kind of atom. (Sec. 4B; App. A, no. 16; Fig. 4.2)
fault a crack in the Earth's crust where surface rocks have slipped up, down,
or sideward. (Sec. 2B; App. A, no. 4; Fig. 2.6)
field of view the angular area covered by a camera or other type of detector.
(Sees. 2A, 2E, 3C; App. A, no. 2; Fig. 2.3)
film a plastic strip coated with light-sensitive emulsion on one side, used to
record focused images in a camera. After development, black-and-white
film shows a negative image (blackened where light struck it). Color film,
after processing, shows the colors of light that struck it. Red and infrared
film record longer wavelengths of light than does ordinary film. (Sees.
2A, 3C; App. A, no. 11)
focal length the distance from a lens to its focused image of an object very
far away. (Sec. 2A; Fig. 2.3)
forbidden line a spectrum line that can be emitted by a low-density gas but not
absorbed by it. (Sees. 4B, 4C) See emission line, energy level, spectrum.
Greenwich mean time (GMT) the time of an event, from 0 at midnight to
12 hours at noon to 24 hours at midnight, as measured at 0° longitude
(Greenwich, near London, England); used on the Apollo-Soyuz mission
and other space missions to avoid confusion with other time zones. See
Pamphlet I.
groundtrack the path followed by a spacecraft over the Earth's surface.
(Sees. 2, 2A; Fig. 2.5)
ground truth measurements made from the ground to confirm or calibrate
measurements made from a spacecraft in orbit. (Sec. 2C; App. A, no. 5;
Figs. 2.4, 3.1)
infrared invisible electromagnetic radiation with wavelengths from 0.7 to
1000 micrometers; longer than visible wavelengths. (Sec. 3C; App. A,
no. 13; Fig. 2.2)
ion an atom with one or more electrons removed or, more rarely, added.
(Sec. 4A; Fig. 4.2)
laser (from /ight amplification by stimulated emission of radiation) a light
source emitting only one wavelength of coherent light (all in the same phase
of the wave cycle). A pulsed laser emits short flashes of very high intensity.
(Sees. 3, 3B)
lens a set of pieces of glass or quartz accurately shaped to focus light from a

53
 distant object to form an image of that object. (Sees. 2A, 3C; App. A,
nos. 2, 3, 11; Figs. 2.2,2.3, 3.1)
lidar a pulsed light detection and ranging instrument similar to radar (radio
detection and ranging). Lidar was used to measure the altitude of aerosols
and the droplet characteristics. (Sees. 3B, 3D; App. A, no. 9; Fig. 3.3)
MA-007 the Stratospheric Aerosol Measurement Experiment on the Apollo-
Soyuz mission. (Sees. 1,3, 3A, 3B, 3C, 3D; Figs. 3.2, 3.4, 3.7)
MA-059 the Ultraviolet Absorption Experiment. (Sees. 1, 4, 4C, 4D, 4E;
App. A, nos. 17, 18; Figs. 4.4 to 4.8)
MA-136 the Earth Observations and Photography Experiment. (Sees. 1, 2,
2A, 2C, 2D; Figs. 2.4, 2.5)
MA-148 the Artificial Solar Eclipse Experiment. (Sec. 3C) See Pamphlet III.
millibar (inbar) a unit of pressure equal to 100 N/m 2 , used for measuring
atmospheric pressure. (Sec. 4A; Fig. 4.1)
monocular a small telescope, like binoculars but for one eye only. (Sec. 2B;
App. A, no. 1)
orbit the path followed by a satellite around an astronomical body, such as
the Earth or the Moon. The orbit number was used on Apollo-Soyuz to
identify the time. (Sec. 2; Fig. 3.4)
ozone (O3) a somewhat unstable molecule formed in the Earth's atmosphere
from atomic and molecular oxygen at altitudes from 19 to 35 kilometers.
(Sec. 4A; Fig. 4.1)
photometer an instrument that uses electrical voltage to measure the intensity
(brightness) of light. (Sees. 3C, 3D; Fig. 3.7) There are several types;
a photomultiplier amplifies the electron current. (Sec. 3A; Fig. 3.1)
photon a quantum of light—the smallest separable amount of energy in a beam
of light. Photon energy is proportional to frequency and inversely pro-
portional to wavelength. (Sec. 4B)
plates the six continental masses and the sea floors adjacent to them on Earth;
subplates are segments of these plates. Plate tectonics is a study of the
motion of plates and subplates. (Sec. 2D)
Principal Investigator the individual responsible for a space experiment and
for reporting the results.
radar (radio detection and ranging) a transmitter that sends a radio pulse
toward an object and measures the time interval until the reflected (echo)
pulse comes back. The time interval gives the range (distance) of the object.
(Sees. 3B, 4A; App. A, no. 15)
reaction-control jets small propulsion units on a spacecraft used to rotate or
accelerate it in a specific direction. (Sec. 4C) See Pamphlet I.
reflectivity the ratio of the reflected intensity to the intensity falling on a
mirror or retroreflector. (Sees. 4C, 4D)

54
refraction the bending of electromagnetic rays such as light or radio waves,
where the material they are passing through changes in density, composition,
or other properties. (Sees. 2D, 3C, 3D, 3E; App. A, no. 10; Figs. 3.4,
3.5(c), 3.6)
refractive index the ratio of c (the velocity of light in a vacuum) to the
velocity of light through a transparent substance. Each such substance
lowers the velocity of light slightly and by a different amount—low-
density air has a different refractive index from high-density air and from
water, glass, sulfuric acid, etc. (Sec. 3D)
resonance line a spectrum line resulting from a jump between the two
lowest energy levels in an atom. A resonance line is strongly absorbed
and strongly emitted. (Sees. 4B, 4C; App. A, no. 17; Fig. 4.2)
retroreflector three mirrors perpendicular to each other (like the inside
corner of a box). These mirrors reflect any entering light ray back on itself.
A group of seven such "corner reflectors" made up each retroreflector
on Soyuz. (Sec. 4C, 4D; App. A, nos. 18, 19; Fig. 4.4)
rift a crack in the Earth's surface, where one land mass is sliding past another
in plate or subplate movement of continental drift. (Sees. 2B, 2D; Fig. 2.6)
salinity the percentage content of salt in seawater. (Sees. 2C, 2D; Figs. 2.7,
2.10)
scattered light light striking fine aerosol particles is reflected (scattered)
in all directions. Similarly, photons of resonance-line wavelength are
absorbed by atoms and reemitted in all directions. (Sees. 3, 3B to 3D,
4B; App. A, no. 7)
spectrometer an instrument that spreads light into a spectrum and measures
the intensity at different wavelengths. (Sees. 4B, 4C, 4D; App. A,
no. 19; Fig. 4.4)
spectrum light spread out into its component wavelengths. The full
electromagnetic spectrum extends from very short gamma rays and x-rays
through visible light to infrared and long radio waves. (App. A, no. 10)
Spectrum lines are peaks (emission lines) or gaps (absorption lines) in
a plot of intensity versus wavelength. See Pamphlet II.
troposphere the lowest layer of the atmosphere, just above the Earth's
surface, about 10 kilometers thick. (Sees. 4A, 4E; App. A, no. 13; Fig. 4.1)
velocity vector v (of Apollo-Soyuz) the speed and direction of Apollo-Soyuz
through the atmospheric gases at 222 kilometers altitude. (Sees. 4C, 4D;
Figs. 4.5, 4.6, 4.7, 4.8)
wavelength (X) the distance from the crest of one wave to the crest of the
next, usually measured in angstroms for light waves. Spectra are usually
plotted as intensity versus wavelength. (Sees. 3C, 3E, 4A, 4B, 4E;
App. A, no. 17; Figs. 4.2, 4.3)

55
Appendix D

Further Reading
ABC's of Space by Isaac Asimov, Walker and Co. (New York), 1969—an
illustrated glossary of spaceflight terms.
Atoms and Astronomy by Paul A. Blanchard (Available from the U.S.
Government Printing Office, Washington, D.C. 20402), 1976—atomic
spectra explained in simple terms.
Continental Drift: The Evolution of a Concept by Ursula B. Marvin,
Smithsonian Institution Press (Washington, D.C.), 1973—a clear and easily
understood account of this newest branch of geology.
Continents Adrift (readings from Scientific American, with an introduction by
J. Tuzo Wilson), W. H. Freeman & Co., Inc. (San Francisco), 1972—an
anthology on evidence for and developments of this theory.
Earth and Space Science by C. W. Wolfe et al., D. C. Heath and Co.
(Boston), 1966—a general reference for topics discussed in this pamphlet.
Introduction to the Atmosphere by Herbert Riehl, McGraw-Hill, Inc. (New
York), 1972—for students who want to learn about the dynamics of the
Earth's atmosphere, particularly in relation to experiments onboard
Earth satellites.
The Language of Space: A Dictionary of Astronautics by Reginald Turnill,
John Day Co., Inc. (New York), 1971—a well-written glossary of 1100
space terms, with a section on "the next 20 years in space."
Lasers and Light (readings from Scientific American),W. H. Freeman & Co.,
Inc. (San Francisco), 1969—college-level descriptions of optics, x-rays,
radio waves, and lasers.
Modern Physics by H. Clarke Metcalfe, John E. Williams, and Joseph F.
Castka, Holt, Rinehart and Winston (New York), 1976—see Section
12.9, "Quantum Theory."
The Origin of the Solar System, Thornton Page and Lou Williams Page,
eds., Macmillan Publishing Co., Inc. (New York), 1966—see Chapters,
"Earth's Atmosphere Viewed From Below and Above."
Physics for Society by W. B. Phillips, Addison-Wesley Publishing Co.
(Menlo Park, Calif.), 1971—covers recent advances in technology and
space sciences.
Physics: Foundations and Frontiers by George Gamow and John N.
Cleveland, Prentice-Hall, Inc. (Englewood Cliffs, N.J.), 1976—see
Chapter 21, Section 21-9, "Spectroscopes," and Chapter 22, "The
Energy Quantum."
Readings in the Physical Sciences and Technology (articles from Scientific
American, with an introduction by Isaac Asimov), W. H. Freeman & Co.,
Inc. (San Francisco), 1969—contains well-illustrated articles on pertinent
subjects.

56
Science From Your Airplane Window by Elizabeth A. Wood, Dover Pub-
lications (New York), 1975—discusses locating and observing geologic
features from the air.

<rll.S. GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE: 1977 0-243-575

EP-137

NASA
National Aeronautics and
Space Administration