Documents / Official release
This NASA file of astronaut scientific debriefing papers from 1962 collects internal Office of Space Sciences material on the science observations made on early Mercury flights. A February 1962 memo from Maurice Dubin asks for more detail on John Glenn's report of luminous particles and the atmospheric horizon layer. A draft memo concludes that the particles were tied to the spacecraft and were not extraterrestrial. The file also holds a Los Alamos letter that attributes the high haze layer to nitrogen peroxide, and notes on Carpenter's airglow observations.
From the source:Release of 2026-06-12 This file contains memoranda, correspondence, reports, and other materials relating to contemporary scientific interest in investigating the nature of luminous phenomena reported by astronauts John Glenn and Walter Schirra during spaceflight. This collection includes transcripts from NASA interviews and debriefings with both astronauts regarding those observations. It also contains details relating to scientific observations of atmospheric phenomena, including brief descriptions of luminous particles, experiences while aboard spacecraft, and circa 1955 theoretical analysis of meteoric particles entering the atmosphere. Pages 34-35, 55-56, 57-63, 64-113, and 122-127 feature content relevant to the PURSUE initiative.
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back. This supports the idea that the partlcles probably are pushed outward by
t he expanding steam from the capsule, before they begin to stream backward. It
l s probable that many of the particles lodge on the outside of the capsule,
since Carpenter i s quite sure, from the direction of streami ng a cross the
wi ndow, that the particles came from a point near where the knocking was done.
Carpenter obtained two excellent photographs of the sun when just
abov~ the horizon. These photog.ra:phs plainly sh~w. the flatte~ed,, sa\.lsage- . .. ·kc.h ""' ,, + ~\:~
Ct, fft.,;~c. ( n~'(':, thh \- v:,h .. 1" \\(. ';,(..\.v .,.,_,, \ , \(~ \-h •,,11 0,v I>' • ~"',\,( ei,., tr,-, , ,1 ·t )c ,., .., ,rr l " '"~ '>
shaped f onn photographed earlier by Glenn.,'\ Calculations of this theoretical
shape are being made at this ,time for compar.i son with the astronaut observations .
The flattened shape is due to the fact that the lower port i on of the sun's d i sk
is seen through layers whtch refract the l.ight much more strongly than those
through which the upper part is seen. As a conse~uence, the whole d Lsk appears
flattened. A s i milar, but much smaller flatten i ng has long been known to be
observable f rom the ground. A part of the i nterest of tht s phenomenon comes
from the fact that at great distances, as at the moon, the effect of this re-
frac t i on is to make the sun appear as a red ring of light around the earth. Not linked to a story yet.
Official release, from the pursue collection. The PDF is mirrored here; the original link is above. 216 pages are in the text index: search them above, or from the library's search.