The Effect Of Enospheric Scintillation On GNSS

Despite the amounts of incoming radiation, very little actually reaches the Earth’s surface. One layer of protection the Earth provides is in the form of a magnetic field that deflects charged particles from reaching the Earth’s surface. This magnetic field is generated by a combination of the liquids within the Earth’s core and the interplanetary magnetic field generated by the Sun. This field reaches out thousands of miles from Earth, so when solar wind travels through space and encounters Earth’s

We now that the Earth has layers in the atmosphere to protect us from the Suns light and heat. It may not be technically a “layer” of the atmosphere, but the magnetosphere also plays a role in our protection. The Sun produces something called solar wind which is basically “the flow of” “charged particles from the Sun”, writes authors Timothy Slater and Roger Freedman. (Slater) Solar wind can travel at supersonic speeds and we probably wouldn’t be here have this discussion. Fortunately for us, the magnetosphere and Earth’s magnetic field can deflect these winds.

2nd P: To understand the effects of solar plasma on Earth’s magnetosphere, one must look at the creation of plasma in the early days of the sun. The sun’s creation is similar to the process in the explosion of a hydrogen bomb, only with the energy created equaling the force of 10 billion hydrogen bombs per second. When the sun was originally forming, hydrogen gas in the middle was crushed from weight above. Eventually, the pressures and temperatures reached such an intense point to where the hydrogen atoms broke apart into electrons and photons, thus, creating plasma. Photons from the explosion of electrons and protons are made so fast and so many at a time that it creates the observed power of the sun. This reaches us as sunlight. Even though the process of the energy created is relatively quick, the process in which the photons travel to Earth happens over a long time within the Sun’s layers. The energy of sunlight that shines down on us today is over 100,000 years 1

As the plasma rotates with the sun’s convection zone, consolidation of the magnetic flux tubes occurs such that their field strength is stronger. As the outer layers of the sun rotate faster near the equator than they do near the poles (“differential rotation”), as much as 1.3 times more than the rotation at 30° latitude (see figure 4, part 2, not to scale), the magnetic field becomes distorted forming lines of concentrated magnetic intensity (see figure 4, part 3). This activity causes enough turbulence to ‘buckle’ the magnetic field such that it bends out forming a loop above the photosphere, and as these regions rise through the solar atmosphere, the convective flow of energy is partially blocked, cooling the region and thus reducing its brightness, causing the darkness associated with sunspots (see figure 4, part

Large sunspots could have a diameter of about 20,000 miles, which is several times larger than the Earth’s diameter, and they can last for months. Sunspots have a dark central region called the umbra and the lighter surrounding region of it is called the penumbra. A pore is a smaller sunspot that has no penumbra. Pores may only be several hundred miles and last only for a few hours. The sunspot cycle is the number of sunspots and solar latitudes at which they appear and vary over a period of 11 years. During the beginning of a cycle sunspots are between 20 degrees and 40 degrees north and south of the sun’s equator. Later on in the cycle the spots increase in number and get closer to the solar equator. Sunspot’s magnetic fields have a strength 3,000 times greater than an average magnetic field of either the Sun or Earth. Astronomers believe that may have something to do with the cause of

The Troposphere has atoms and molecules which affect the radio waves between the satellite and the receiver. Due to the amount of gas present in this area group velocity decreases and the Zenith angle contributes to the troposphere refraction. The lower the zenith angle the more affected is the tropospheric refraction. Ionosphere and Troposphere has an influence on pseudo range and Carrier phase measurement because of electrons present in this region that obstruct the signal waves from the rover to the satellite, (Parker, 2003). Virtual Reference system with the GPSNET software is able to model these errors and thus the errors are reduced. The Troposphere is non dispersive for frequencies below 30 GHz, however the Troposphere adds a slight distance to the range measurement.

In early June, my sister got a Whistler Wave Detector, it’s pretty cool. My Aunt Cami, my Uncle Zane, my sister Kailee and I are all science nerds. Whistler Waves are a very low frequency or VLF electromagnetic (radio) wave generated by lightning. Frequencies of terrestrial whistlers are 1 kHz to 30 kHz, with a maximum amplitude usually around 3 kHz to 5 kHz. Near late June, my family, (including my relatives on my Dad's side) and I go to Ft. Peck Montana every year to celebrate the Fourth of July and to go camping mostly! Ft. Peck is the perfect place for detecting whistler waves because there isn’t any activity going on such as power lines or electrical fences. All you need is a storm now. Which there was one, and all we could hear from the detector is spherics! I’ve always wanted to hear a Whistler Wave but it’s really rare to hear one, and that is when I became more in love with science. I want to become an Astrophysicist and study outerspace, especially the moon. This November the moon is orbiting the earth so you can go out and stargaze, but before you star gaze you have to understand the basics of the Moon orbiting the earth.

“All of them? I don’t know, but I would think so. What concerns me is the geomagnetic storms we’ve been having. The result of the solar wind gusts. We've got data from magnetometers—the elevated Kp Index. Jolts going off the charts. There's just no doubt any longer about a relationship between what we see happening on Earth and the solar wind. BUT then—you see—we also got solar wind coming from where our sun is most definitely NOT! You're the one who should be able to spot the source, Arnold. You're the whiz kid working with radiation emissions. Tell me what's going on here!”

The Aurora Borealis, more commonly known as the Northern Lights, are visible particles and energy from the sun. This energy can be so bright it lights up the sky completely and or so thin and fleeting that is can be mistaken for scattered stars or even the milky way galaxy. Auroras can appear in different intensities all in the same night. This event is caused by the nitrogen and oxygen from Earth's upper atmospheres mixing with electrons in fast moving bursts from Solar flares. The electrons are controlled by the earth’s electrical fields; this is called the Magnetosphere. Normally the Magnetosphere has a stream of electrons combining with

The Juno test is at present flying through that same sun powered wind, and measuring its properties, the announcement said. (Hubble did a comparable investigation of Jupiter's auroras and the sunlight based wind with the Cassini test in 2000).

Large solar flares from Coronal Heating erupting from the surface, reaching up to temperatures of 1,000,000K, often caused by magnetic reconnection of the electric fields. The ions quickly move across from different polarities, allowing the particles to be seen traveling along the path. These paths observed were the sunspots that the particles were traveling along, often seen as darker due to the intensity of the magnetic fields. The images of the solar flares captured by Argo were incredible as the wave like features started to twist and get tangled from the radial difference, as the sun was littered with darken spots, clearly in the peak of its 22 year long

When the sun is centered between Mars and Earth, the arrangement is called Mars solar conjunction, which occurs in every 26 months while both the Earth and the mars revolve in their defined sun-centered orbits. During the Mars solar conjunction the radio communication system disrupts because of sun, the Mars orbiters’ operators stop sending any commands temporarily, in order to avoid the receiving of any misinterpreted information that could be harmful.

The solar wind containing these hot gases races toward the edges of the solar system, and smash in to the magnetosphere. The magnetosphere protects the earth by deflecting most of the solar wind around the planet. Trillions of these charged particles mange to get through and project from the North and South poles. Energy released in this fashion excites atoms of nitrogen and oxygen, which in turn emit pulses of colored light. These formations are called an aurora. The aurora borealis, which are visible in Alaska, are a result of this sort of space storm.

The Defense Satellite Communications System (DSCS) began supporting wideband communications requirements for the government in the summer of 1966; the DSCS was broken down into three phases. The first phase was to send 26 small communications satellites to orbit with a lifespan of 18 months with one of the 26 satellites lasting 11 years after the launch (DSCS, 1982). Phase two of the DSCS program started shortly after the final launches to orbit of phase one. The first launches of phase two we done in the fall of 1971, phase two DSCS were launched to replace all phase one DSCS. DSCS phase two had all the incorporated technology form its phase one predecessors. Phase two DSCS had increased transmission link, increased communications

Possibly the most dramatic event that occurs within our solar system is the solar flare. Scientists have spent much time studying this solar phenomenon attempting to learn how to predict them. This in turn has caused a significant increase in understanding the anatomy of solar flares to include the phases of flares and what they emit. Bringing things closer to Earth, the emissions of solar flares can have a significant impact in today’s technological world. By far, the largest impact of solar flares to our technology is radio blackouts. The emissions of solar flares cause scintillation to occur in the ionosphere effectively blocking long distance transmissions. Solar flares are excessively bright and powerful and so deserve our attention not only from a scientific standpoint, but a societal standpoint as we rely more and more on our technology.