Anomalous oxygen is hot atomic and singly ionized

oxygen Oxygen is a chemical element; it has chemical symbol, symbol O and atomic number 8. It is a member of the chalcogen group (periodic table), group in the periodic table, a highly reactivity (chemistry), reactive nonmetal (chemistry), non ...

believed to be present in Earth's

exosphere The exosphere is a thin, atmosphere-like volume surrounding a planet or natural satellite where molecules are gravitationally bound to that body, but where the density is so low that the molecules are essentially collision-less. In the case of ...

above 500 km near the poles during their respective summers. This additional component augmenting mainly the hydrogen and helium exosphere is able to explain the unexpectedly high drag forces on satellites passing near the poles in their summers. Anomalous oxygen densities are included in the

NRLMSISE-00 NRLMSISE-00 is an empirical, global reference atmospheric model of the Earth from ground to space. It models the temperatures and densities of the atmosphere's components. A primary use of this model is to aid predictions of satellite orbital de ...

models of Earth's atmosphere. Picone, J. M.; Hedin, A. E.; Drob, D. P.; Aikin, A. C. (2002-12-01). "NRLMSISE-00 empirical model of the atmosphere: Statistical comparisons and scientific issues". Journal of Geophysical Research: Space Physics. 107 (A12): 1468. . ISSN 2156-2202.

References

Oxygen Atmospheric chemistry Ionosphere {{astrophysics-stub