The Platteville Atmospheric Observatory located near

Platteville, Colorado Platteville is a Statutory Town in Weld County, Colorado, United States. The population was 2,485 at the 2010 census. It is adjacent to Fort Vasquez on U.S. Highway 85. History Platteville was founded on May 27, 1871, and was incorporated on Ja ...

was one of the first major

ionospheric heater An ionospheric heater, or an ionospheric HF pump facility, is a powerful radio wave transmitter with an array of antennas which is used for research of plasma turbulence, the ionosphere and upper atmosphere.Powerful electromagnetic waves for activ ...

s in the

world In its most general sense, the term "world" refers to the totality of entities, to the whole of reality or to everything that is. The nature of the world has been conceptualized differently in different fields. Some conceptions see the worl ...

. Operating from 1968 through 1984, it expanded knowledge of

ionospheric 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 a ...

processes greatly. The observatory continues operation, but now focuses on wind profiling. The first studies were made of HF heater induced

airglow Airglow (also called nightglow) is a faint emission of light by a planetary atmosphere. In the case of Earth's atmosphere, this optical phenomenon causes the night sky never to be completely dark, even after the effects of starlight and diff ...

, heater-induced spread F, wide band heater-induced absorption, and heater created field-aligned ionization.

References

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References to experiments and programs at Platteville
Astronomical observatories in Colorado Buildings and structures in Weld County, Colorado {{US-observatory-stub

See also

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External links