Influence of Meteoric Aerosol particles on the Charge Balance in the Upper Mesosphere During ECOMA 2010

Abstract

This work is focused on the three sounding rocket launches during the ECOMA Geminids campaign in December 2010: One before the Geminids meteor shower, one at its peak and one some days after the peak. In this work, the main emphasis is on analyzing the results from electron and ion probes on the rockets, obtaining electron and ion density profiles, and comparing them with the measurements of meteoric smoke particles. Aerosol particles originating from meteors may be the condensation nuclei for ice particles that form phenomena such as NLC ad PMSE. This work concludes that there are strong indications of the existence of negatively charged smoke particles in the height region between 80-95km. It describes how these parameters were measured, and how to get from raw data to the end results.