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Comment on the Paper “On the influx of small comets into the Earth's upper atmosphere”
Author(s) -
Soter Steven
Publication year - 1987
Publication title -
geophysical research letters
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 2.007
H-Index - 273
eISSN - 1944-8007
pISSN - 0094-8276
DOI - 10.1029/gl014i002p00162
Subject(s) - astrobiology , atmosphere (unit) , comet , breakup , absorption (acoustics) , evaporation , atmospheric sciences , earth (classical element) , physics , geology , environmental science , astronomy , astrophysics , meteorology , optics , mechanics
Frank et al. attribute the occurrence of transient dark spots in the terrestrial uv dayglow emission to absorption by water vapor from the tidal breakup and evaporation of small comets at high altitude. Such comets would be sufficiently large and numerous that they should already have been detected optically as faint slow‐moving objects. However, they have not been observed.