Airglow refers to a natural glowing light phenomenon that occurs in the Earth's atmosphere. It happens when molecules and atoms in the air release energy, causing the sky to emit a faint and usually greenish glow. Full definition
Trapped beneath Earth's ocean of air, ground - based observatories will be stymied by starlight - warping turbulence, and by airglow — faint light emitted by atmospheric chemical reactions that can corrupt delicate observations. (scientificamerican.com)
Fundamental experimental data were derived from the observations of airglows by the Spectroscopy for Investigation of Characteristics of the Atmosphere of Mars (SPICAM) instrument on - board Mars Express: while NO is useful to constrain dynamics around the 100 km level (Gagné et al. 2013), CO and CO2 + UV emissions allow the direct monitoring of the efficiency of ionization processes (Stiepen et al. 2015). (swsc-journal.org)
A wide - field ultraviolet imager is designed to track motions of sulphur dioxide in the stratosphere, and a visible - light camera to monitor the planet's night side for airglow emissions and lightning. (newscientist.com)