Alaska Science Forum
Lithium
Red Sky
Article
#312
by T. Neil Davis
This column is provided as a public
service by the Geophysical Institute, University of Alaska Fairbanks, in cooperation
with the UAF research community. T. Neil Davis is a
seismologist at the institute.
Red sky at night: scientist's
delight
Natural blood-red sky at night is
comparatively rare. Perhaps once a decade, huge flares on the sun generate red
auroras that spread over much of the earth's surface and sometimes cause the
sky to appear red.
In recent years, artificially red nighttime skies have been created over limited parts of the earth. Rocket-borne releases of a few pounds of the element lithium make markers in the sky that can be easily photographed to measure winds in the high atmosphere.
Many Alaskans and Yukoners are familiar with the barium releases made aboard
rockets launched from the Poker
Flat rocket range near
In somewhat similar fashion it is
possible to slowly spew out lithium metal from a rocket to produce a long,
visible red
trail. Sunlight shining on the lithium atoms cause
them to be excited so that they glow with a red light. Unlike the
barium, lithium released in the high atmosphere yields only a neutral gas
tracer. The neutral tracer is useful only for
measuring the direction and speed of the wind in the high atmosphere at altitudes
well above 100 km.
This week scientists from NASA's
The red lithium trails are easy to
see and do persist for a long time. Lithium is such a light element that it
remains aloft
for hours drifting with the wind. Eventually the lithium becomes invisible
as it disperses and combines with other
elements in the air.
The overall objective of the
research using chemical releases at high altitude is to understand how energy
is
transferred from one level to another in the atmosphere and the near-earth regions
of space above. That energy
transfer may have some influence upon climate.
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