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Rotational temperatures derived from rapid spectrometric scans of the 3914 Å N 2 + band in the aurora have been made over a height range from 93 to 160 km. Simultaneous measurements of heights of lower borders were made using parallactic photography. The temperature range of approximately 190 to 570 °K agrees well with Hunten's profile and tends to confirm the gradient between 110 and 160 km at 5.2°/km.
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J. H. Brandy (1964) studied this question.
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