Search for ultraviolet shuttle glow

The Space Shuttle Columbia flown in January 1986 carried two ultraviolet experiments (UVX) designed to observe very weak diffuse emission from various astronomical sources at wavelengths below 3200 Å with moderate spectral resolution. Such observations are extremely sensitive to the presence of any shuttle induced ultraviolet glow, since the wavelength range, 1200–3200 Å, includes strong emission lines or bands of species such as O, NO, and OH which are predicted to radiate strongly by models of the shuttle glow. The UVX spectrometers are sensitive to emission features as faint as 0.1 Rayleighs. Emissions from O₂, O and NO are detected and shown to be consistent with an atmospheric origin.