Abstract
A PRELIMINARY experiment has been carried out to investigate the feasibility of making submillimetre wave measurements from a jet aircraft flying in the stratosphere. The value of such aircraft as observation platforms is that very low values of water vapour content in the line of sight can be obtained and water vapour is the dominant atmospheric absorber at submillimetre wavelengths. In this sense the experiments can be regarded to continue those made at high altitude observatories1,2, but to improve on them greatly because it was possible to determine lower total water values.
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References
Gebbie, H. A., Phys. Rev., 109, 1174 (1957).
Farmer, C. B., and Key, P. J., App. Opt., 4, 1051 (1965).
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BATER, M., CAMERON, R., BURROUGHS, W. et al. Submillimetre Wave Observations at an Altitude of 40,000 ft.. Nature 214, 377 (1967). https://doi.org/10.1038/214377a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/214377a0
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