Abstract
FOB his Friday evening discourse at the Royal Institution on November 6, Prof. F. A. Paneth took as his subject “The Chemical Exploration of the Stratosphere”. Prof. Paneth pointed out that while the temperature and the electrical state of the stratosphere have been the object of many investigations, its chemical composition has seldom been studied. If winds are absent, or at least rare in the stratosphere, we should expect a partial separation of the atmospheric gases under the gravitational field of the earth. In order to decide this question of the stillness of the stratosphere, samples of air have to be collected. For this purpose, the sending up of automatic devices in unmanned balloons is the most efficient method. In collaboration with the Meteorological Office of the Air Ministry, Prof. Paneth and Dr. E. Gliickauf, working at the Imperial College of Science and Technology, have developed methods for the automatic collection and subsequent analysis of air samples from the stratosphere. From the first results, published a year ago, it was concluded that up to 18 km. no definite change in the chemical composition of the stratosphere occurred, but that at a height of 21 km. the relative amount of the light gas helium has already distinctly increased. During the last few months, this has been confirmed by further successful flights reaching more than 23 km.
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The Chemical Exploration of the Stratosphere. Nature 138, 834 (1936). https://doi.org/10.1038/138834a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/138834a0