Geocorona Explained

The geocorona is the luminous part of the outermost region of the Earth's atmosphere, the exosphere. It is seen primarily via far-ultraviolet light (Lyman-alpha) from the Sun that is scattered from neutral hydrogen.^[1] It extends to at minimum 15.5 Earth radii and probably up to about 100 Earth radii (for context, the Moon is approx. 60 Earth radii away).^[2] The geocorona has been studied from outer space by the Astrid satellites and the Galileo spacecraft (among others), using its ultraviolet spectrometer (UVS) during an Earth flyby.

See also

• Stellar corona
• Atmosphere of Earth

External links

• Geocorona at Southwest Research Institute

Notes and References

1. Kameda . S. . Ikezawa . S. . Sato . M. . Kuwabara . M. . Osada . N. . Murakami . G. . Yoshioka . K. . Yoshikawa . I. . Taguchi . M. . Funase . R. . Sugita . S. . Miyoshi . Y. . Fujimoto . M. . Ecliptic North-South Symmetry of Hydrogen Geocorona . Geophysical Research Letters . 16 December 2017 . 44 . 23 . 11,706–11,712 . 10.1002/2017GL075915 . 2017GeoRL..4411706K . free .
2. Baliukin . I. I. . Bertaux . J.-L. . Quémerais . E. . Izmodenov . V. V. . Schmidt . W. . SWAN/SOHO Lyman‐α mapping: the Hydrogen Geocorona Extends Well Beyond The Moon . Journal of Geophysical Research: Space Physics . 15 February 2019 . 124 . 2 . 861–885 . 10.1029/2018JA026136 . 2019JGRA..124..861B . 135304690 .