Spectroscopy of a mesospheric ghost reveals iron emissions

María Passas-Varo (), Oscar Velde, Francisco J. Gordillo-Vázquez, Juan Carlos Gómez-Martín, Justo Sánchez, Francisco J. Pérez-Invernón, Rubén Sánchez-Ramírez, Maya García-Comas and Joan Montanyà
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María Passas-Varo: CSIC
Oscar Velde: Universitat Politécnica de Catalunya
Francisco J. Gordillo-Vázquez: CSIC
Juan Carlos Gómez-Martín: CSIC
Justo Sánchez: CSIC
Francisco J. Pérez-Invernón: CSIC
Rubén Sánchez-Ramírez: CSIC
Maya García-Comas: CSIC
Joan Montanyà: Universitat Politécnica de Catalunya

Nature Communications, 2023, vol. 14, issue 1, 1-10

Abstract: Abstract Mesospheric Green emissions from excited Oxygen in Sprite Tops (ghosts) are infrequent and faint greenish transient luminous events that remain for hundreds of milliseconds on top of certain energetic sprites. The main hypothesis to explain this glow persistence is the long lifetime of excited atomic oxygen at 557.73 nm, a well-known emission line in aurora and airglow. However, due to the lack of spectroscopic campaigns to analyse such events to date, the species involved in the process can not yet be identified. Here we report observational results showing the temporal evolution of a ghost spectrum between 500 nm and 600 nm. Besides weak -but certain- traces of excited atomic oxygen, our results show four main contributors related to the slow decay of the glow: atomic iron and nickel, molecular nitrogen and ionic molecular oxygen. Additionally, we are able to identify traces of atomic sodium, and ionic silicon, these observations being consistent with previous direct measurements of density profiles of meteoric metals in the mesosphere and lower thermosphere. This finding calls for an upgrade of current air plasma kinetic understanding under the influence of transient luminous events.

Date: 2023
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DOI: 10.1038/s41467-023-42892-1

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