MODEL FOR GENERATING GLOBAL IMAGES OF EMISSION FROM THE THERMOSPHERE

A general model is presented for the production of images of thermosph eric dayglow emissions. Ultraviolet images are generated that are rele vant to remote sensing of the principal constituents of the thermosphe re (O and N2) and the ionosphere (O+). The emission features considere d here are 1356-angstrom (O), Lyman-Birge-Hopfield bands of N2 between 1650 and 1715 angstrom, and 834 angstrom (O+). The MSIS-86 and Intern ational Reference Ionosphere models were used as climatological repres entations of the distributions of neutrals and ions, respectively. We describe the generation of the images beginning with the production of volume-emission-rate profiles. A detailed description of the generali zed image-generation technique is given. This technique permits us to change the observer's altitude and viewing geometry without incurring a large computational burden. The images produced by this technique de monstrate the potential of airglow imaging systems for remote sensing of global variability in thermospheric composition.