Modeling the Earth’s Nightglow Spectrum for Systems of Bands Emitted at Spontaneous Transitions between Different States of Electronically Excited Oxygen Molecules

Abstract

Processes of the excitation and quenching of electronically excited state ${{{\text{A}}}^{{\text{3}}}}\Sigma _{{\text{u}}}^{ + }$ of molecular oxygen in the Earth’s atmosphere at the altitudes of nightglow are considered. The calculated integrated intensities of Herzberg I bands are compared to experimental data obtained from space shuttle Discovery (STS-53). It is shown that the best agreement is observed upon adjusting quantum yields obtained earlier for the production of vibrational levels of the state ${{{\text{A}}}^{{\text{3}}}}\Sigma _{{\text{u}}}^{ + }$ in three-body collisions.