How A Startling New Discovery

Created A Storm of Controversy

Cover of Cosmic Rain: The Controversial Discovery of Small Comets, by Luis A. Frank ISBN: 978-1-949501-19-3

Every few seconds a "snowball" the size of a small house breaks up as it approaches Earth and deposits a large cloud of water vapor in Earth's upper atmosphere.

Dr. Louis A. Frank Cosmic Rain: The Controversial Discovery of Small Comets

It took a decade for Dr. Frank's discovery of these previously undetected small comets to be confirmed with images taken by the Polar spacecraft, in 1997. One man, a single new discovery; why would a scientific discovery upset the entire scientific community?

How A Startling New Discovery

Created A Storm of Controversy

Cover of Cosmic Rain: The Controversial Discovery of Small Comets, by Luis A. Frank ISBN: 978-1-949501-19-3

Every few seconds a "snowball" the size of a small house breaks up as it approaches Earth and deposits a large cloud of water vapor in Earth's upper atmosphere.

Dr. Louis A. Frank Cosmic Rain: The Controversial Discovery of Small Comets

It took a decade for Dr. Frank's discovery of these previously undetected small comets to be confirmed with images taken by the Polar spacecraft, in 1997. One man, a single new discovery; why would a scientific discovery upset the entire scientific community?

How A Startling New Discovery

Created A Storm of Controversy

Cover of Cosmic Rain: The Controversial Discovery of Small Comets, by Luis A. Frank ISBN: 978-1-949501-19-3

Every few seconds a "snowball" the size of a small house breaks up as it approaches Earth and deposits a large cloud of water vapor in Earth's upper atmosphere.

Dr. Louis A. Frank Cosmic Rain: The Controversial Discovery of Small Comets

It took a decade for Dr. Frank's discovery of these previously undetected small comets to be confirmed with images taken by the Polar spacecraft, in 1997. One man, a single new discovery; why would a scientific discovery upset the entire scientific community?

Small Comets

Small Comets

A Delta rocket lifted off from Vandenberg Air Force Base on August 3rd, 1981 it's payload a pair of NASA Dynamics Explorer satellites. One circles the poles of Earth on an elliptical orbit, at an altitude ranging from 350 miles to 14,500 miles. Designed to examine Earth for certain light emissions that are invisible to the naked eye. Scientists at the University of Iowa hoped that these emissions would provide further insight into the nature of the auroral lights that occur in Earth's polar atmosphere and detect any effects associated with them.

Facsimile of GRL April 1986Dayglow is produced as sunlight interacts with the atomic oxygen of Earth's upper atmosphere. While not visible to the naked eye, the ultraviolet light emitted by this dayglow is within the range of the satellite's infrared spectrum camera. The images of Earth's polar dayglow sent back from Dynamics Explorer contained an unexpected feature. The blanket of dayglow was not uniform, speckled with dark spots, random seeming holes in the Earth's dayglow...

The first small comet papers were written by Dr. Louis A. Frank appeared in the April 1986 issue of Geophysical Research Letters; Copyright ©1986, 1987 by the American Geophysical Union.

Small Comets

Small Comets

A Delta rocket lifted off from Vandenberg Air Force Base on August 3rd, 1981 it's payload a pair of NASA Dynamics Explorer satellites. One circles the poles of Earth on an elliptical orbit, at an altitude ranging from 350 miles to 14,500 miles. Designed to examine Earth for certain light emissions that are invisible to the naked eye. Scientists at the University of Iowa hoped that these emissions would provide further insight into the nature of the auroral lights that occur in Earth's polar atmosphere and detect any effects associated with them.

Facsimile of GRL April 1986Dayglow is produced as sunlight interacts with the atomic oxygen of Earth's upper atmosphere. While not visible to the naked eye, the ultraviolet light emitted by this dayglow is within the range of the satellite's infrared spectrum camera. The images of Earth's polar dayglow sent back from Dynamics Explorer contained an unexpected feature. The blanket of dayglow was not uniform, speckled with dark spots, random seeming holes in the Earth's dayglow...

The first small comet papers were written by Dr. Louis A. Frank appeared in the April 1986 issue of Geophysical Research Letters; Copyright ©1986, 1987 by the American Geophysical Union.

Small Comets

A Delta rocket lifted off from Vandenberg Air Force Base on August 3rd, 1981 it's payload a pair of NASA Dynamics Explorer satellites. One circles the poles of Earth on an elliptical orbit, at an altitude ranging from 350 miles to 14,500 miles. Designed to examine Earth for certain light emissions that are invisible to the naked eye. Scientists at the University of Iowa hoped that these emissions would provide further insight into the nature of the auroral lights that occur in Earth's polar atmosphere and detect any effects associated with them.

Dayglow is produced as sunlight interacts with the atomic oxygen of Earth's upper atmosphere. While not visible to the naked eye, the ultraviolet light emitted by this dayglow is within the range of the satellite's infrared spectrum camera. The images of Earth's polar dayglow sent back from Dynamics Explorer contained an unexpected feature. The blanket of dayglow was not uniform, speckled with dark spots, random seeming holes in the Earth's dayglow...

The first small comet papers were written by Dr. Louis A. Frank appeared in the April 1986 issue of Geophysical Research Letters; Copyright ©1986, 1987 by the American Geophysical Union.

About the Author

Dr. Louis A. Frank

(1938 - 2014)

Was one of the most respected space physicists in the world; he was responsible for more scientific instruments aboard spacecraft than any other scientist, having been an experimenter, co-investigator, or principal investigator for instruments aboard 42 spacecraft. He was the recipient of the National Space Act Award.

A native of Chicago, Frank's first professional research activities began in 1958 when he assisted James Van Allen in the calibration of the first U.S. lunar probes, Pioneers 3 and 4, as an undergraduate student at the University of Iowa. Later, Frank was the principal investigator for the auroral imaging instruments for the Dynamics Explorer Mission, the plasma instrumentation for the Galileo Mission to Jupiter, the U.S. plasma instrumentation for the Japanese Geotail spacecraft, and the camera for visible wavelengths for the Polar spacecraft of the International Solar Terrestrial Physics (ISTP) Program. His scientific accomplishments were many: he discovered the theta aurora, the remarkable configuration of auroral and polar cap luminosities that looks like the Greek letter theta hovering above the polar cap; he made the first measurements of the plasma ring around Jupiter and Saturn; and he was the first to measure solar-wind plasma funneling directly into the Earth's polar atmosphere, as well as the belt of ions around the Earth known as the "ring current." Frank was a Fellow of the American Physical Society, a Fellow of the American Geophysical Union, and the recipient of the National Space Act Award.

About the Author

Dr. Louis A. Frank

(1938 - 2014)

Was one of the most respected space physicists in the world; he was responsible for more scientific instruments aboard spacecraft than any other scientist, having been an experimenter, co-investigator, or principal investigator for instruments aboard 42 spacecraft. He was the recipient of the National Space Act Award.

A native of Chicago, Frank's first professional research activities began in 1958 when he assisted James Van Allen in the calibration of the first U.S. lunar probes, Pioneers 3 and 4, as an undergraduate student at the University of Iowa. Later, Frank was the principal investigator for the auroral imaging instruments for the Dynamics Explorer Mission, the plasma instrumentation for the Galileo Mission to Jupiter, the U.S. plasma instrumentation for the Japanese Geotail spacecraft, and the camera for visible wavelengths for the Polar spacecraft of the International Solar Terrestrial Physics (ISTP) Program. His scientific accomplishments were many: he discovered the theta aurora, the remarkable configuration of auroral and polar cap luminosities that looks like the Greek letter theta hovering above the polar cap; he made the first measurements of the plasma ring around Jupiter and Saturn; and he was the first to measure solar-wind plasma funneling directly into the Earth's polar atmosphere, as well as the belt of ions around the Earth known as the "ring current." Frank was a Fellow of the American Physical Society, a Fellow of the American Geophysical Union, and the recipient of the National Space Act Award.

Cosmic Rain: The Controversial Discovery of Small Comets

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A fascinating book. An exciting story. May be a classic.

Arthur C. Clarke, author of 2001: A Space Odyssey

Well worth reading...Offers unique insights into the way a theory is developed and the way the scientific community handles unorthodox ideas

Richard Morris, San Francisco Chronicle

About the Author

Dr. Louis A. Frank

(1938 - 2014)

Was one of the most respected space physicists in the world; he was responsible for more scientific instruments aboard spacecraft than any other scientist, having been an experimenter, co-investigator, or principal investigator for instruments aboard 42 spacecraft. He was the recipient of the National Space Act Award.

A native of Chicago, Frank's first professional research activities began in 1958 when he assisted James Van Allen in the calibration of the first U.S. lunar probes, Pioneers 3 and 4, as an undergraduate student at the University of Iowa. Later, Frank was the principal investigator for the auroral imaging instruments for the Dynamics Explorer Mission, the plasma instrumentation for the Galileo Mission to Jupiter, the U.S. plasma instrumentation for the Japanese Geotail spacecraft, and the camera for visible wavelengths for the Polar spacecraft of the International Solar Terrestrial Physics (ISTP) Program. His scientific accomplishments were many: he discovered the theta aurora, the remarkable configuration of auroral and polar cap luminosities that looks like the Greek letter theta hovering above the polar cap; he made the first measurements of the plasma ring around Jupiter and Saturn; and he was the first to measure solar-wind plasma funneling directly into the Earth's polar atmosphere, as well as the belt of ions around the Earth known as the "ring current." Frank was a Fellow of the American Physical Society, a Fellow of the American Geophysical Union, and the recipient of the National Space Act Award.

Cosmic Rain: The Controversial Discovery of Small Comets

Luis A. Frank

ISBN: 978-1-949501-19-3

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