NASA-Funded Science Projects Tuning In to ‘Eclipse Radio’

 This topic was touched on briefly during Loyd Van Horn's DX Central LIVE! program from February 24th. . If your not watching his live show, you are missing out! The next program will be Friday, March 1, 2024 at 1845 CST. (0045 UTC) at https://www.dxcentrallive.com/

As the eclipse nears on April 8, we'll be covering more on this topic as related to radio.

FEB 20, 2024

Miles Hatfield

On April 8, 2024, a total solar eclipse will cross parts of the United States. For millions of people along the path of totality, where the Moon will completely cover the Sun, it may feel like an eerie daytime darkness has descended as temperatures drop and wind patterns change. But these changes are mild compared to what happens some 100 to 400 miles above our heads in an electrically conductive layer of our atmosphere known as the ionosphere, where the “false night” of an eclipse is amplified a hundredfold. Three NASA-funded experiments will investigate the eclipse’s effects on the ionosphere through the power of radio, a technology well suited to studying this enigmatic layer of our atmosphere. 

Additional story at: https://science.nasa.gov/solar-system/skywatching/nasa-funded-science-projects-tuning-in-to-eclipse-radio/

NASA talks to spacecraft using both radio and laser communications on one dish

 

Georgina Torbet

By Georgina Torbet

February 8, 2024

When NASA’s Psyche mission launched in October of last year, it had a special passenger on board: a test of a new communications system using lasers, named Deep Space Optical Communications (DSOC). That system sent back its first data in November, and now it has hit another milestone, with signals from the experiment being received by a hybrid antenna on Earth.

The vast majority of deep space missions communicate using radio frequencies, which is a tried and tested technology that has been in use for decades. However, there are bandwidth limitations to radio communications, and as missions collect ever larger amounts of data, a new communications technology is required to send them. That’s where laser or optical communications come in, as this can improve the available bandwidth by 10 or even 100 times over the radio.

Read the whole story at: https://www.digitaltrends.com/space/nasa-hybrid-communications-antenna/

Solar Eclipse - Monday August 21, 2017

A total eclipse of the sun will be visible in the United States on Monday, August 21.  The path of  the total eclipse will first reach land in Oregon’s Pacific Coast around 10:15 a.m. local time (1315  EDT or 1715 UTC) and will progress southeast through Salem OR, Casper WY, Lincoln NE, Kansas  City KS?MO, Nashville TN, Columbia SC, and Charleston SC, passing into the Atlantic around 2:50  p.m. local time (1450 ELT or 1850 UTC). 

Resources: 
HamSCI project: http://www.hamsci.org/basic?project/2017?total?solar?eclipse  Sky and Telescope article, focusing on AM radio effects:  http://www.skyandtelescope.com/2017?total?solar?eclipse/how?to?hear?the?solar?eclipse/ 
Nuts and Volts article on ham radio and eclipse:  http://www.nutsvolts.com/magazine/article/the?solar?eclipse?and?ham?radio 
Space Magazine: how to view the eclipse safely:  https://www.space.com/33797?total?solar?eclipse?2017?guide.html 
NASA official site: https://eclipse.gsfc.nasa.gov/solar.html  

Solar activity is expected to be at very low levels throughout the outlook period.   Solar activity is expected to be low with a chance for M?class flare activity (R1?R2 / MinorModerate) through 19 Jul when Region 2665 exits the visible disk. Very low to low levels are  expected from 20?28 Jul. A chance for R1?R2 activity is possible with the return of old Region 2665  from 29 Jul ? 12 Aug.  
(NRC/DXN-84)

"Observe" August's Eclipse From Your AM Radio
Joe Rao


When the Moon's shadow glides across the U.S. on August 21st, you'll have a chance to hear the eclipse as it happens.

Solar eclipses are more than remarkable visual astronomical phenomena; they’re pretty interesting from a radio viewpoint too. Should overcast skies prevail over your location on eclipse day, you can still make some interesting observations using an AM radio.
Dramatic changes can take place in radio reception when day changes into night and vice versa. Perhaps you’ve had the experience of driving in your car at night, listening to some program on the AM dial, when the announcer will identify the station as WBBM in Chicago. This might seem odd if you are listening from Albany, New York, more than 700 miles (1,100 km) from the Windy City. Yet, cases like this happen every night.

Additional article at:
http://www.skyandtelescope.com/2017-total-solar-eclipse/how-to-hear-the-solar-eclipse/

Huge solar flare jams radio and satellite signals

A powerful solar eruption that triggered a huge geomagnetic storm has disturbed radio communications and could disrupt electrical power grids, radio and satellite communication in the next days, NASA said. A strong wave of charged plasma particles emanating from the Jupiter-sized sun spot, the most powerful seen in four years, has already disrupted radio communication in southern China.

The Class X flash - the largest such category - erupted at 0156 UTC on Tuesday, according to the US space agency. “X-class flares are the most powerful of all solar events that can trigger radio blackouts and long-lasting radiation storms,” disturbing telecommunications and electric grids, NASA said yesterday.

Geomagnetic storms usually last 24 to 48 hours - but some could last for many days, read a statement from the US National Weather Service. “Ground to air, ship to shore, shortwave broadcast and amateur radio are vulnerable to disruption during geomagnetic storms. Navigation systems like GPS can also be adversely affected.”

NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory said it saw a large coronal mass ejection (CME) associated with the flash blasting toward Earth at about 560 miles per second (900 kilometers per second). The flare spread from Active Region 1158 in the sun’s southern hemisphere, which had so far lagged behind the northern hemisphere in flash activity. It followed several smaller flares in recent days.

“The calm before the storm,” read a statement on the US National Weather Service Space Weather Prediction Service. “Three CMEs are enroute, all a part of the Radio Blackout events on February 13, 14, and 15 (UTC). The last of the three seems to be the fastest and may catch both of the forerunners about mid to late … February 17.”

The China Meteorological Administration reported that the solar flare caused “sudden ionospheric disturbances” in the atmosphere above China and jammed shortwave radio communications in the southern part of the country. The CMA warned there was a high probability that large solar flares would appear over the next three days, the official Xinhua news agency reported.

The British Geological Survey (BGS) said meanwhile that the solar storm would result in spectacular Northern Lights displays starting today. One coronal mass ejection reached Earth on February 14, “sparking Valentine’s Day displays of the Northern Lights (aurora borealis) further south than usual.”

“Two CMEs are expected to arrive in the next 24-48 hours and further… displays are possible some time over the next two nights if skies are clear,” it said. The office published geomagnetic records dating back to the Victorian era which it hopes will help in planning for future storms. “Life increasingly depends on technologies that didn’t exist when the magnetic recordings began,” said Alan Thomson, BGS head of geomagnetism. “Studying the records will tell us what we have to plan and prepare for to make sure systems can resist solar storms,” he said.

A 2009 report by a panel of scientists assembled by NASA said that a sustained and powerful solar flare outbreak could overwhelm high-voltage transformers with electrical currents and short-circuit energy grids. The report, titled “Severe Space Weather Events - Understanding Societal and Economic Impacts” warned that such a catastrophic event could cost the United States alone up to two trillion dollars in repairs in the first year - and it could take up to 10 years to fully recover.

(Source: AFP/R Netherlands Media Network Weblog)

Mystery of the Missing Sunspots, Solved ?

Author: Dr. Tony Phillips | Credit: Science@NASA

The sun is in the pits of a century-class solar minimum, and sunspots have been puzzlingly scarce for more than two years. Now, for the first time, solar physicists might understand why.

At an American Astronomical Society press conference today in Boulder, Colorado, researchers announced that a jet stream deep inside the sun is migrating slower than usual through the star's interior, giving rise to the current lack of sunspots.

Rachel Howe and Frank Hill of the National Solar Observatory (NSO) in Tucson, Arizona, used a technique called helioseismology to detect and track the jet stream down to depths of 7,000 km below the surface of the sun. The sun generates new jet streams near its poles every 11 years, they explained to a room full of reporters and fellow scientists. The streams migrate slowly from the poles to the equator and when a jet stream reaches the critical latitude of 22 degrees, new-cycle sunspots begin to appear.


Above: A helioseismic map of the solar interior. Tilted red-yellow bands trace solar jet streams. Black contours denote sunspot activity. When the jet streams reach a critical latitude around 22 degrees, sunspot activity intensifies. Howe and Hill found that the stream associated with the next solar cycle has moved sluggishly, taking three years to cover a 10 degree range in latitude compared to only two years for the previous solar cycle.

The jet stream is now, finally, reaching the critical latitude, heralding a return of solar activity in the months and years ahead.

"It is exciting to see", says Hill, "that just as this sluggish stream reaches the usual active latitude of 22 degrees, a year late, we finally begin to see new groups of sunspots emerging."

The current solar minimum has been so long and deep, it prompted some scientists to speculate that the sun might enter a long period with no sunspot activity at all, akin to the Maunder Minimum of the 17th century. This new result dispells those concerns. The sun's internal magnetic dynamo is still operating, and the
sunspot cycle is not "broken."

Because it flows beneath the surface of the sun, the jet stream is not directly visible. Hill and Howe tracked its hidden motions via helioseismology. Shifting masses inside the sun send pressure waves rippling through the stellar interior. So-called "p modes" (p for pressure) bounce around the interior and cause the sun to ring like an enormous bell. By studying the vibrations of the sun's surface, it is possible to figure out what is happening inside. Similar techniques are used by geologists to map the interior of our planet.

In this case, researchers combined data from GONG and SOHO. GONG, short for "Global Oscillation Network Group," is an NSO-led network of telescopes that measures solar vibrations from various locations around Earth. SOHO, the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory, makes similar measurements from space.

"This is an important discovery," says Dean Pesnell of NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center. "It shows how flows inside the sun are tied to the creation of sunspots and how jet streams can affect the timing of the solar cycle."

There is, however, much more to learn.

"We still don't understand exactly how jet streams trigger sunspot production," says Pesnell. "Nor do we fully understand how the jet streams themselves are generated."

To solve these mysteries, and others, NASA plans to launch the Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO) later this year. SDO is equipped with sophisticated helioseismology sensors that will allow it to probe the solar interior better
than ever before.

The Helioseismic and Magnetic Imager (HMI) on SDO will improve our understanding of these jet streams and other internal flows by providing full disk images at ever-increasing depths in the sun," says Pesnell.

Continued tracking and study of solar jet streams could help researchers do something unprecedented--accurately predict the unfolding of future solar cycles. Stay tuned for that!
(NASA/Btown Monitoring Post)

What's Wrong with the Sun? (Nothing)

Stop the presses! The sun is behaving normally.
By Dr. Tony Phillips: Science@NASA

So says NASA solar physicist David Hathaway. "There have been some reports lately that Solar Minimum is lasting longer than it should. That's not true. The ongoing lull in sunspot number is well within historic norms for the solar cycle."

This report, that there's nothing to report, is newsworthy because of a growing buzz in lay and academic circles that something is wrong with the sun. Sun Goes Longer Than Normal Without Producing Sunspots declared one recent press release. A careful look at the data, however, suggests otherwise.

But first, a status report: "The sun is now near the low point of its 11-year activity cycle," says Hathaway. "We call this 'Solar Minimum.' It is the period of quiet that separates one Solar Max from another."

The solar cycle, 1995-2015. The "noisy" curve traces measured sunspot numbers; the smoothed curves are predictions. Credit: D. Hathaway/NASA/MSFC

During Solar Max, huge sunspots and intense solar flares are a daily occurance. Auroras appear in Florida. Radiation storms knock out satellites. Radio blackouts frustrate hams. The last such episode took place in the years around 2000-2001.

During Solar Minimum, the opposite occurs. Solar flares are almost non-existant while whole weeks go by without a single, tiny sunspot to break the monotony of the blank sun. This is what we are experiencing now.

Although minima are a normal aspect of the solar cycle, some observers are questioning the length of the ongoing minimum, now slogging through its 3rd year.

"It does seem like it's taking a long time," allows Hathaway, "but I think we're just forgetting how long a solar minimum can last." In the early 20th century there were periods of quiet lasting almost twice as long as the current spell. (See the end notes for an example.) Most researchers weren't even born then.

Hathaway has studied international sunspot counts stretching all the way back to 1749 and he offers these statistics: "The average period of a solar cycle is 131 months with a standard deviation of 14 months. Decaying solar cycle 23 (the one we are experiencing now) has so far lasted 142 months--well within the first standard deviation and thus not at all abnormal. The last available 13-month smoothed sunspot number was 5.70. This is bigger than 12 of the last 23 solar minimum values."

In summary, "the current minimum is not abnormally low or long."

The longest minimum on record, the Maunder Minimum of 1645-1715, lasted an incredible 70 years. Sunspots were rarely observed and the solar cycle seemed to have broken down completely. The period of quiet coincided with the Little Ice Age, a series of extraordinarily bitter winters in Earth's northern hemisphere. Many researchers are convinced that low solar activity, acting in concert with increased volcanism and possible changes in ocean current patterns, played a role in that 17th century cooling.



For reasons no one understands, the sunspot cycle revived itself in the early 18th century and has carried on since with the familiar 11-year period. Because solar physicists do not understand what triggered the Maunder Minimum or exactly how it influenced Earth's climate, they are always on the look-out for signs that it might be happening again.

The quiet of 2008 is not the second coming of the Maunder Minimum, believes Hathaway. "We have already observed a few sunspots from the next solar cycle," he says. (See Solar Cycle 24 Begins.) "This suggests the solar cycle is progressing normally."

What's next? Hathaway anticipates more spotless days, maybe even hundreds, followed by a return to Solar Max conditions in the years around 2012.

Additional information and graphics on spotless days and this story is available at
http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2008/11jul_solarcycleupdate.htm?list1066509