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Incoherent Scatter Radar
Incoherent scattering is a type of scattering phenomenon in physics. The term is most commonly used when referring to the scattering of an electromagnetic wave (usually light or radio frequency) by random fluctuations in a gas of particles (most often electrons). The most well known practical application is known as incoherent scatter radar theory, a ground-based technique for studying the Earth's ionosphere first proposed by Professor William E. Gordon in 1958. A radar beam scattering off electrons in the ionospheric plasma creates an incoherent scatter return. When an electromagnetic wave is transmitted through the atmosphere, each of the electrons in the ionospheric plasma essentially acts as an antenna excited by the incoming wave, and the wave is re-radiated from the electron. Since the electrons are all moving at varying speeds as a result of ionospheric dynamics and random thermal motion, the reflection from each electron is also Doppler shifted. The receiver on the groun ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Physics
Physics is the natural science that studies matter, its fundamental constituents, its motion and behavior through space and time, and the related entities of energy and force. "Physical science is that department of knowledge which relates to the order of nature, or, in other words, to the regular succession of events." Physics is one of the most fundamental scientific disciplines, with its main goal being to understand how the universe behaves. "Physics is one of the most fundamental of the sciences. Scientists of all disciplines use the ideas of physics, including chemists who study the structure of molecules, paleontologists who try to reconstruct how dinosaurs walked, and climatologists who study how human activities affect the atmosphere and oceans. Physics is also the foundation of all engineering and technology. No engineer could design a flat-screen TV, an interplanetary spacecraft, or even a better mousetrap without first understanding the basic laws of physic ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Electron
The electron ( or ) is a subatomic particle with a negative one elementary electric charge. Electrons belong to the first generation of the lepton particle family, and are generally thought to be elementary particles because they have no known components or substructure. The electron's mass is approximately 1/1836 that of the proton. Quantum mechanical properties of the electron include an intrinsic angular momentum ( spin) of a half-integer value, expressed in units of the reduced Planck constant, . Being fermions, no two electrons can occupy the same quantum state, in accordance with the Pauli exclusion principle. Like all elementary particles, electrons exhibit properties of both particles and waves: They can collide with other particles and can be diffracted like light. The wave properties of electrons are easier to observe with experiments than those of other particles like neutrons and protons because electrons have a lower mass and hence a longer de Broglie wavele ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Haystack Observatory
Haystack Observatory is a multidisciplinary radio science center, ionospheric observatory, and astronomical microwave observatory owned by Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). It is located in Westford, Massachusetts (US), approximately northwest of Boston. Haystack was initially built by MIT's Lincoln Laboratory for the United States Air Force and was known as Haystack Microwave Research Facility. Construction began in 1960, and the antenna began operating in 1964. In 1970 the facility was transferred to MIT, which then formed the Northeast Radio Observatory Corporation (NEROC) with a number of other universities to operate the site as the Haystack Observatory. , a total of nine institutions participated in NEROC. The Haystack Observatory site is also the location of the Millstone Hill Geospace Facility, an atmospheric sciences research center. Lincoln Laboratory continues to use the site, which it calls the Lincoln Space Surveillance Complex (LSSC). The George R. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Poker Flat Research Range
The Poker Flat Research Range (PFRR) is a launch facility and rocket range for sounding rockets in the U.S. state of Alaska, located on a site at Chatanika, about 30 miles (50 km) northeast of Fairbanks and 1.5 degrees south of the Arctic Circle. More than 1,700 launches have been conducted at the range to study the Earth's atmosphere and the interaction between the atmosphere and the space environment. Areas studied at PFRR include the aurora, plasma physics, the ozone layer, solar proton events, Earth's magnetic field, and ultraviolet radiation. Rockets launched at PFRR have attained an apogee of . PFRR is owned by the University of Alaska Fairbanks (UAF) Geophysical Institute, the only such owned by a university in the world, and is operated under contract to the NASA Wallops Flight Facility. Other users include the United States Naval Research Laboratory (NRL), the Air Force Geophysics Lab (AFGL), and various universities and research laboratories. Since its founding ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sondrestrom Upper Atmospheric Research Facility
The Sondrestrom Upper Atmospheric Research Facility was an ionospheric and atmospheric research facility situated about west of Kangerlussuaq, Greenland. It was commonly known around the town as Kellyville. The facility was operational from 1983 to 2018. The ionospheric radar was first constructed by SRI International at Stanford, California, then moved to Chatanika, Alaska, where it was operational from November 1971 to March 1982. It was transported to Kangerlussuaq in 1983. It was operated by SRI International for the U.S. National Science Foundation and the Danish Meteorological Institute. This facility hosted more than 20 instruments, the majority of which provided unique and complementary information about the arctic upper atmosphere. The centerpiece instrument of the facility was an L band incoherent scatter Incoherent scattering is a type of scattering phenomenon in physics. The term is most commonly used when referring to the scattering of an electromagnetic wave (usually ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Jicamarca Radio Observatory
The Jicamarca Radio Observatory (JRO) is the equatorial anchor of the Western Hemisphere chain of Incoherent Scatter Radar (ISR) observatories extending from Lima, Peru to Søndre Strømfjord, Greenland. JRO is the premier scientific facility in the world for studying the equatorial ionosphere. The observatory is about half an hour drive inland (east) from Lima and 10 km from the Central Highway (, 520 meters ASL). The magnetic dip angle is about 1°, and varies slightly with altitude and year. The radar can accurately determine the direction of the Earth's magnetic field (B) and can be pointed perpendicular to B at altitudes throughout the ionosphere. The study of the equatorial ionosphere is rapidly becoming a mature field due, in large part, to the contributions made by JRO in radio science. JRO's main antenna is the largest of all the incoherent scatter radars in the world. The main antenna is a cross-polarized square array composed of 18,432 half-wavelength dipoles occup ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Arecibo Observatory
The Arecibo Observatory, also known as the National Astronomy and Ionosphere Center (NAIC) and formerly known as the Arecibo Ionosphere Observatory, is an observatory in Barrio Esperanza, Arecibo, Puerto Rico owned by the US National Science Foundation (NSF). The observatory's main instrument was the Arecibo Telescope, a spherical reflector dish built into a natural sinkhole, with a cable-mount steerable receiver and several radar transmitters for emitting signals mounted above the dish. Completed in 1963, it was the world's largest single-aperture telescope for 53 years, surpassed in July 2016 by the Five-hundred-meter Aperture Spherical Telescope (FAST) in China. Following two breaks in cables supporting the receiver platform in mid-2020, the NSF decommissioned the telescope. A partial collapse of the telescope occurred on December 1, 2020, before controlled demolition could be conducted. In 2022, the NSF announced the telescope will not be rebuilt, with an educational fa ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Millstone Hill Observatory
Haystack Observatory is a multidisciplinary radio science center, ionospheric observatory, and astronomical microwave observatory owned by Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). It is located in Westford, Massachusetts (US), approximately northwest of Boston. Haystack was initially built by MIT's Lincoln Laboratory for the United States Air Force and was known as Haystack Microwave Research Facility. Construction began in 1960, and the antenna began operating in 1964. In 1970 the facility was transferred to MIT, which then formed the Northeast Radio Observatory Corporation (NEROC) with a number of other universities to operate the site as the Haystack Observatory. , a total of nine institutions participated in NEROC. The Haystack Observatory site is also the location of the Millstone Hill Geospace Facility, an atmospheric sciences research center. Lincoln Laboratory continues to use the site, which it calls the Lincoln Space Surveillance Complex (LSSC). The George R. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
EISCAT
EISCAT (European Incoherent Scatter Scientific Association) operates three incoherent scatter radar systems in Northern Scandinavia and Svalbard. The facilities are used to study the interaction between the Sun and the Earth as revealed by disturbances in the ionosphere and magnetosphere. The EISCAT Scientific Association exists to provide scientists with access to incoherent scatter radar facilities of the highest technical standard. EISCAT 3D The construction of EISCAT's new generation of incoherent radars: EISCAT 3D, has started in November 2022. The first stage of the new system will consist of three radar sites, functioning together, just as the old mainland system. Later, transmitter up grade and more sites will be added to the system. Instead of parabolic dishes, as the old system, EISCAT 3D is a multistatic radar composed of three phased-array antenna fields. Many small antennas working together as one. Each field will have between 5 000 - 10 000 crossed dip ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Electron Density
In quantum chemistry, electron density or electronic density is the measure of the probability of an electron being present at an infinitesimal element of space surrounding any given point. It is a scalar quantity depending upon three spatial variables and is typically denoted as either \rho(\textbf r) or n(\textbf r). The density is determined, through definition, by the normalised N-electron wavefunction which itself depends upon 4N variables (3N spatial and N spin coordinates). Conversely, the density determines the wave function modulo up to a phase factor, providing the formal foundation of density functional theory. According to quantum mechanics, due to the uncertainty principle on an atomic scale the exact location of an electron cannot be predicted, only the probability of its being at a given position; therefore electrons in atoms and molecules act as if they are "smeared out" in space. For one-electron systems, the electron density at any point is proportional to th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ionosphere
The ionosphere () is the ionized part of the upper atmosphere of Earth, from about to above sea level, a region that includes the thermosphere and parts of the mesosphere and exosphere. The ionosphere is ionized by solar radiation. It plays an important role in atmospheric electricity and forms the inner edge of the magnetosphere. It has practical importance because, among other functions, it influences radio propagation to distant places on Earth. History of discovery As early as 1839, the German mathematician and physicist Carl Friedrich Gauss postulated that an electrically conducting region of the atmosphere could account for observed variations of Earth's magnetic field. Sixty years later, Guglielmo Marconi received the first trans-Atlantic radio signal on December 12, 1901, in St. John's, Newfoundland (now in Canada) using a kite-supported antenna for reception. The transmitting station in Poldhu, Cornwall, used a spark-gap transmitter to produce a signal with a freq ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Doppler Effect
The Doppler effect or Doppler shift (or simply Doppler, when in context) is the change in frequency of a wave in relation to an observer who is moving relative to the wave source. It is named after the Austrian physicist Christian Doppler, who described the phenomenon in 1842. A common example of Doppler shift is the change of pitch heard when a vehicle sounding a horn approaches and recedes from an observer. Compared to the emitted frequency, the received frequency is higher during the approach, identical at the instant of passing by, and lower during the recession. The reason for the Doppler effect is that when the source of the waves is moving towards the observer, each successive wave crest is emitted from a position closer to the observer than the crest of the previous wave. Therefore, each wave takes slightly less time to reach the observer than the previous wave. Hence, the time between the arrivals of successive wave crests at the observer is reduced, causing an increa ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
