Aeronomy

The mathematician Sydney Chapman introduced the term aeronomy to describe the study of the Earth's upper atmosphere[2] in 1946 in a letter to the editor of Nature entitled "Some Thoughts on Nomenclature.

[5] Terrestrial aeronomy contrasts with meteorology, which is the scientific study of the Earth's lower atmosphere, defined as the troposphere and stratosphere.

Currently, the preferred term for an electrical-discharge phenomenon induced in the upper atmosphere by tropospheric lightning is "transient luminous event" (TLE).

[9] Planetary aeronomy studies the regions of the atmospheres of other planets[5] that correspond to the Earth's mesosphere, thermosphere, exosphere, and ionosphere.

[5] It seeks to identify and describe the ways in which differing chemistry, magnetic fields, and thermodynamics on various planets affect the creation, evolution, diversity, and disappearance of atmospheres.