Lightning Strike in Africa Helps Take Pulse of Sun Nov 15, 2009
"Even though Africa is thousands of miles from Israel, lightning signals there bounce off Earth's ionosphere -- the envelope surrounding Earth -- as they move from Africa to Israel," Prof ... He discovered a similar anomaly in the lightning data due to the changes in Earth's ionosphere -- signals waxed and waned on a 27-day cycle ... Price was able to show that this variability in the data was not due to changes in the lightning activity itself, but to changes in Earth's ionosphere, suspiciously... (Science Daily)
Vitaly Ginzburg; worked on Soviet hydrogen bomb Nov 10, 2009
During the war years, he worked on the transmission of radio waves through the ionosphere. Minor physical disabilities kept him from being conscripted into the army. (Boston Globe)
Put the cell phone down Nov 2, 2009
In fact, some of the telephones use frequencies high enough to burst through the ionosphere, shoot out into space and bounce off the moon. Maybe that s what happened to Uncle Leonard. (Burlington Union, MA)
FASTSAT instruments shipped to NASA Marshall for tests and launch preparation Oct 27, 2009
The instruments include the TTI, or Thermosphere Temperature Imager that will make measurements for things like spacecraft drag; the Mini-ME, a low energy neutral atom imager which will detect neutral atoms formed in the plasma population of the Earth's outer atmosphere to improve global space weather prediction; and PISA, the Plasma and Impedence Spectrum Analyzer which will test a new measurement technique for the thermal electron populations in the ionosphere, and their density structuring,... (EurekAlert! -- Business News)
Scientists create 'artificial ionosphere' using radio waves Oct 5, 2009
LONDON: An experiment that fires powerful radio waves into the sky has created a patch of 'artificial ionosphere', mimicking the uppermost portion of Earth's atmosphere ... It has spent nearly two decades using radio waves to probe Earth's magnetic field and ionosphere ... They determined that the areas of the bull's-eye with strange light patterns were in regions of denser, partially ionized gas in the atmosphere, as measured by ground-based high-frequency radar used to track the ionosphere. (India Times, India -- Health/Science)
Saturn Lightning Storm Sets Solar System Record Sep 17, 2009
Dr Fischer said: These lightning storms are not only astonishing for their power and longevity, the radio waves that they emit are also useful for studying Saturn's ionosphere, the charged layer that surrounds the planet a few thousand kilometres above the cloud tops. The radio waves have to cross the ionosphere to get to Cassini and thereby act as a natural tool to probe the structure of the layer and the levels of ionisation in different regions ... Results have confirmed previous studies of... (Science Daily)
U.S. researchers discover mystery about solar wind Sep 15, 2009
Lyons said Heejong Kim, an assistant UCLA researcher and their colleagues analyzed radar data that measure the strength of the interaction by measuring flows in the ionosphere, the part of the Earth's upper atmosphere ionized by solar radiation. The results surprised them. (Xinhuanet, China)
NRL brings new hyperspectral atmospheric and ocean science to the International Space Station Sep 11, 2009
A complex series of maneuvers, involving both the ISS and the JEM-EF manipulator arms, will transfer HREP from the vehicle to its deployment station on the JEM-EF. HICO is the first space-borne sensor specifically designed for coastal maritime hyperspectral imaging, and RAIDS is a hyperspectral imaging sensor suite for innovative measurement of the Earth's thermosphere and ionosphere ... RAIDS, built collaboratively by NRL and The Aerospace Corporation, combines a suite of eight optical... (EurekAlert! -- Business News)
Surprise In Earth's Upper Atmosphere Discovered Sep 11, 2009
However, Lyons, Kim and their colleagues analyzed radar data that measure the strength of the interaction by measuring flows in the ionosphere, the part of Earth's upper atmosphere ionized by solar radiation ... Convection in the magnetosphere and ionosphere can be strongly driven by these fluctuations, independent of the direction of the interplanetary magnetic field ... " The National Science Foundation has funded ground-based radars which send off radio waves that reflect off the ionosphere,... (Science Daily)
Mitsubishi Electric, IHI Will Join $21 Billion Space Solar-Power Project Sep 1, 2009
The trade ministry and the , which are leading the project, plan to launch a small satellite fitted with solar panels in 2015, and test beaming the electricity from space through the ionosphere, the outermost layer of the earths atmosphere, according to the trade ministry document. The government hopes to have the solar station fully operational in the 2030s, it said. (Bloomberg -- Japan)
Gigantic lightning jets from clouds to space Aug 25, 2009
The something that stops them is the ionosphere, the topmost layer of the Earth's atmosphere (right at the edge of space), which is made up of , or ions ... When the stroke hits the conducting surface, whether ground or ionosphere, more charge can flow from the cloud and the lightning explodes with light ... Because nothing else in the atmosphere can stop it until it hits the ionosphere, the lightning can travel about five to 10 times farther than cloud-to-ground lightning, reaching up to about... (MSNBC -- Environment)
"Upside Down" Lightning as Strong as Earth-bound Bolts Aug 24, 2009
The finding totally shocked the research team, since it's the first clear proof that an electric charge can move directly from the troposphere into the ionosphere, two layers of. Until now "we didn't know whether gigantic jets actually made electrical contact with the upper atmosphere to discharge the thunderstorm," Cummer said. (National Geographic)
Upwards lightning caught on film Aug 24, 2009
Gigantic jets can travel more than 60km (40 miles) into the ionosphere ... " The jets discharge a comparable amount of electricity to conventional lightning but the charge travels further and faster because the thinner air between the clouds and the ionosphere provides less resistance. Gigantic jets are rarely photographed because they happen so quickly that cameras have to be trained on them exactly when they occur. Professor Cummer caught the images of the event by chance. He had trained his... (BBC News -- Science)
Scientists make first discovery using revolutionary long wavelength demonstrator array Aug 19, 2009
LWA will also provide an unparalleled measure of turbulence and waves in the Earth's ionosphere, together with unique diagnostics of phenomena manifested through the Sun-Earth connection also known as "Space Weather.". . (EurekAlert!)
Looking Up: Counting the stars Aug 1, 2009
Then there is the occasional Aurora or Northern Lights, an electrical disturbance in the ionosphere caused by particles from the sun. Distant lightning flashes ( heat lightning ) may also add to the natural nighttime light show. (Belmont Citizen Herald, MA)
New 'crisis satellites' launched Jul 30, 2009
Page last updated at 19:51 GMT, Wednesday, 29 July 2009 20:51 UK. The satellites were launched atop a converted Soviet-era missile. (BBC News)
Strange Alaska facility energizes ionosphere, fans conspiracy flames Jul 29, 2009
Anchorage Daily News. Find out where the fish are biting, and share your knowledge. (Anchorage Daily News)
Still Stuck On The Cold War Jul 14, 2009
I wonder if the neocons have any clue at all what it would take to ensure that 100% of their enemy of the day's missiles not only got destroyed - but destroyed in such a way that nothing detonated within the planet's ionosphere AND all fragments and particles were sure to be beyond the reach of the planet's gravitational field. Gad. (CBS News)
Ham radio operators shoot for the moon Jun 27, 2009
Radio signals normally are reflected off various layers of Earth's ionosphere, which ranges from about 55 to 375 miles high ... It's a lot tougher for ham radio operators to bounce signals off the moon than off the ionosphere, said Teter, a ham operator whose "handle," or call sign is KG6LWE.. (San Francisco Chronicle -- Science)
White House Sounds Alarm On Climate Change Jun 17, 2009
Protect the ionosphere for sure. It wouldn'thurt to lower levels of auto and coal-burning assets, either. (CBS News)
Search For ET Just Got Easier: Effective Way To Search Atmospheres Of Planets For Signs Of Life Jun 16, 2009
It also contained unexpected molecular bands and the signature of the earth ionosphere. Enric Palle, lead author of the paper, from the Instituto de Astrofisica de Canarias, said, "Now we know what the transmission spectrum of a inhabited planet looks like, we have a much better idea of how to find and recognize Earth like planets outside our solar system where life may be thriving. The information in this spectrum shows us that this is a very effective way to gather information about the... (Science Daily)
New Radar Improves Defense Of Earth's Technologies Against Threat Of Space Weather Jun 5, 2009
The new sounding mode enhances our temporal resolution of plasma irregularities within the ionosphere. The resolution increase may help our understanding of coupling processes between the solar wind and the Earth s magnetosphere by allowing the observation of smaller scale phenomena with an unprecedented resolution. (Science Daily)
Earth losing atmosphere faster than neighbors Jun 3, 2009
"The wind comes in, carries a magnetic field, which wraps around the ionosphere of the planet. The ionosphere is basically dragged away.". Earth's magnetic field interacts with the , drawing out energy that gets funneled into the planet's atmosphere along its magnetic field lines. (MSNBC -- Technology)
STEP AWAY FROM YOUR COMPUTER! May 31, 2009
During the Reagan and Bush years, unprecedented federal defecits pushed the public debt of the United States into the ionosphere, with the total almost quadrupling over a little more than ten years to approach the fantastic total of $3. 25 thousand billion. (Atlanta Journal-Constitution -- Opinion)
Space storm's 'epicentre' found May 30, 2009
They saw magnetic oscillations hit the upper atmosphere in a particular location - somewhere over Canada - and ripple out across the ionosphere. These events were followed, three minutes later, by an auroral display. (BBC News -- Science)
Giant Atmospheric Crashes Detected via Auroras May 27, 2009
There, they crash against the ionosphere like surf breaking on a beach. But instead of stopping at the "beach," the atmospheric waves spur smaller, weaker waves inside the ionosphere that generate heat. (National Geographic)
Auroras from "Space Tornadoes" Apr 30, 2009
Ground measurements showed that the space tornadoes channel the electrical current into the ionosphere to spark bright and colorful auroras on Earth ... These currents flow along twisted magnetic field lines from space into the ionosphere where they power several processes, most notably bright auroras such as the Northern Lights, Keiling said ... Simultaneous measurements by THEMIS ground observatories confirmed the tornadoes connection to the ionosphere. (SkyAndTelescope.com)
Electricity Measured Inside Space Tornadoes Apr 28, 2009
The tornadoes then channel this current of flowing electric charge along twisted magnetic field lines into Earth's ionosphere to spark bright and colorful auroras. Andreas Keiling, a space physicist at the University of California, Berkeley's Space Sciences Laboratory, presented THEMIS's findings today at the general assembly of the European Geosciences Union in Vienna, Austria. (Fox News)
Scientists pinpoint the 'edge of space' Apr 10, 2009
"When you drag a heavy object over a surface, the interface becomes hot. In JOULE-II we were able to measure directly two regions being dragged past each other, one being the ionosphere -- being driven by flows in space -- and the other the earth's atmosphere," says Knudsen, who also is the head of the Space Physics Division of the Institute for Space Imaging Sciences (ISIS) ... The paper "Rocket-based measurements of ion velocity, neutral wind, and electric field in the collisional transition... (EurekAlert!)
Can radon gas leaks predict earthquakes? Apr 8, 2009
Some scientists are even looking at satellite measurements of small disturbances in the ionosphere found through minute changes in the properties of radio waves at very low and extremely low frequencies for potential warning signs. But these days, seismologists including those who continue to test the approaches Scholz and his colleagues first proposed are doing well to provide forecasts, rather than predictions. (Christian Science Monitor)
USTAR receives $33M stimulus Apr 6, 2009
- Space Weather: Examines how to forecast weather in Earth s upper atmosphere and ionosphere. These space weather disturbances can harm GPS and the power grid. (Logan Herald Journal, UT)
Collision puts new Asian satellites at risk Feb 24, 2009
Yellow caution lights are flashing for other satellites as well, including the Hubble Space Telescope and the Communication / Navigation Outage Forecasting System (C/NOFS) spacecraft which was launched last year to take measurements in the ionosphere - C/NOFS circles in an elliptical orbit ranging from 375 to 710 kilometers. There are also fears for the $500 million new GeoEye-1 satellite, which was launched in September and only commenced commercial operations in early February - it can focus... (Asia Times Online)
Old school still rules Feb 15, 2009
Russell Ruby of Corvallis used Morse code to call for help last September when he broke his leg backpacking in Washington s remote Glacier Peak Wilderness, bouncing a string of dots and dashes off the ionosphere to a ham in Bozeman, Mont. 600 miles away. (Albany Democrat-Herald, OR)
