With the aim of evaluating the actual possibilities of doing, from the ground, sensitive radio astronomy at decametre wavelengths (particularly below ), an extensive program of radio observations was carried out, in 1999–2002, by using digital spectral and waveform analysers (DSP) of new generation, connected to several of the largest, decametre radio telescopes in the world (i.e., the UTR-2 and URANs arrays in Ukraine, and the Nançay Decametre Array in France).
We report and briefly discuss some new findings, dealing with decametre radiation from Jupiter and the Solar Corona: namely the discovery of new kinds of hyper fine structures in spectrograms of the active Sun, and a new characterisation of Jupiter's “millisecond” radiation, whose waveform samples, with time resolution down to 40 ns, and correlated measurements, by using far distant antennas (3000 km), have been obtained. In addition, scattering effects, caused by the terrestrial ionosphere and the interplanetary medium, could be disentangled through high time resolution and wide-band analyses of solar, planetary and strong galactic radio sources. Consequences for decametre wavelength imaging at high spatial resolution (VLBI) are outlined. Furthermore, in spite of the very unfavourable electromagnetic environment in this frequency range, a substantial increase in the quality of the observations was shown to be provided by using new generation spectrometers, based on sophisticated digital techniques. Indeed, the available, high dynamic range of such devices greatly decreases the effects of artificial and natural radio interference. We give several examples of successful signal detection in the case of much weaker radio sources than Solar System ones, down to the intensity level.
In summary, we conclude that searching for sensitivity improvement at the decametre wavelength is scientifically quite justified, and is now technically feasible, in particular by building giant, phased antenna arrays of much larger collecting area (as in the LOFAR project). In this task, one must be careful of some specifics of this wavelength range—somewhat unusual in “classical” radio astronomy—i.e., very high level and density of radio interference (telecommunications) and the variable terrestrial ionosphere. 相似文献
In the past 50 years, the Sahel has experienced significant tree- and land cover changes accelerated by human expansion and prolonged droughts during the 1970s and 1980s. This study uses remote sensing techniques, supplemented by ground-truth data to compare pre-drought woody vegetation and land cover with the situation in 2011. High resolution panchromatic Corona imagery of 1967 and multi-spectral RapidEye imagery of 2011 form the basis of this regional scaled study, which is focused on the Dogon Plateau and the Seno Plain in the Sahel zone of Mali. Object-based feature extraction and classifications are used to analyze the datasets and map land cover and woody vegetation changes over 44 years. Interviews add information about changes in species compositions. Results show a significant increase of cultivated land, a reduction of dense natural vegetation as well as an increase of trees on farmer's fields. Mean woody cover decreased in the plains (−4%) but is stable on the plateau (+1%) although stark spatial discrepancies exist. Species decline and encroachment of degraded land are observed. However, the direction of change is not always negative and a variety of spatial variations are shown. Although the impact of climate is obvious, we demonstrate that anthropogenic activities have been the main drivers of change. 相似文献
Low-frequency radio observations offer unique diagnostics of the solar corona and solar wind. After a prolongued hiatus, there is renewed interest in this important frequency regime. Two new ground-based instruments will provide critical new low-frequency observations: the low-frequency array (LOFAR) and the frequency agile solar radiotelescope (FASR). This brief topical review summarizes low-frequency radio phenomena that will be accessible to detailed study by LOFAR and FASR in the coming decade. Energy release, drivers of space weather, and studies of the solar wind are emphasized. Both instruments are expected to play important roles in both basic research problems and national and international space weather capabilities. While FASR is a solar-dedicated instrument, LOFAR is not. Solar observing requirements for LOFAR are briefly discussed. 相似文献
During the descent of Ulysses following the 2001 solar north pole passage, the SOHO LASCO C2 telescope recorded a particularly strong sequence of recurrent
polarization brightness (pB) features at latitudes of around 55°. As Ulysses passed overhead, solar rotation swept the interplanetary extensions of these persistent coronal structures over the spacecraft.
Comparison of solar remote sensing and Ulyssesin situ observations through 2002 reveals the solar wind effects of very bright and recurrent K-coronal structures at high solar
latitudes and of a steeply inclined heliospheric neutral sheet (HNS). Despite the high level of solar activity, the HNS at
high latitude still organizes solar wind stream structure much as it did near the previous solar minimum. The recurrent coronal
streamers originate slow solar wind and mark the northern extremity of a very tilted HNS whose passage at Ulysses is accompanied by slow, dense solar wind, enhanced temperature, depressed α abundance, enhanced magnetic fields, and magnetic field directional changes that evolve with spacecraft latitude. 相似文献
The coronal magnetic field above a particular photospheric region will vanish at a certain number of points, called null points.
These points can be found directly in a potential field extrapolation or their density can be estimated from the Fourier spectrum
of the magnetogram. The spectral estimate, in which the extrapolated field is assumed to be random and homogeneous with Gaussian
statistics, is found here to be relatively accurate for quiet Sun magnetograms from SOHO’s MDI. The majority of null points
occur at low altitudes, and their distribution is dictated by high wavenumbers in the Fourier spectrum. This portion of the
spectrum is affected by Poisson noise, and as many as five-sixths of null points identified from a direct extrapolation can
be attributed to noise. The null distribution above 1500 km is found to depend on wavelengths that are reliably measured by
MDI in either its low-resolution or high-resolution mode. After correcting the spectrum to remove white noise and compensate
for the modulation transfer function we find that a potential field extrapolation contains, on average, one magnetic null
point, with altitude greater than 1.5 Mm, above every 322 Mm2 patch of quiet Sun. Analysis of 562 quiet Sun magnetograms spanning the two latest solar minima shows that the null point
density is relatively constant with roughly 10% day-to-day variation. At heights above 1.5 Mm, the null point density decreases
approximately as the inverse cube of height. The photospheric field in the quiet Sun is well approximated as that from discrete
elements with mean flux 〈|φ|〉=1.0×1019 Mx distributed randomly with density n=0.007 Mm−2. 相似文献
The three-dimensional (3D) modeling of coronal loops and filaments requires algorithms that automatically trace curvilinear
features in solar EUV or soft X-ray images. We compare five existing algorithms that have been developed and customized to
trace curvilinear features in solar images: i) the oriented-connectivity method (OCM), which is an extension of the Strous pixel-labeling algorithm (developed by Lee,
Newman, and Gary); ii) the dynamic aperture-based loop-segmentation method (developed by Lee, Newman, and Gary); iii) unbiased detection of curvilinear structures (developed by Steger, Raghupathy, and Smith); iv) the oriented-direction method (developed by Aschwanden); and v) ridge detection by automated scaling (developed by Inhester). We test the five existing numerical codes with a TRACE image
that shows a bipolar active region and contains over 100 discernable loops. We evaluate the performance of the five codes
by comparing the cumulative distribution of loop lengths, the median and maximum loop length, the completeness or detection
efficiency, the accuracy, and flux sensitivity. These algorithms are useful for the reconstruction of the 3D geometry of coronal
loops from stereoscopic observations with the STEREO spacecraft, or for quantitative comparisons of observed EUV loop geometries
with (nonlinear force-free) magnetic field extrapolation models. 相似文献
Using Fe ix/x 17.1 nm observations from the Extreme-Ultraviolet Imaging Telescope (EIT) on the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO), we have identified many coronal plumes inside low-latitude coronal holes as they transited the solar limb during the late
declining phase of cycle 23. These diffuse, linear features appear to be completely analogous to the familiar polar plumes.
By tracking them as they rotate from the limb onto the disk (or vice versa), we confirm that EUV plumes seen against the disk appear as faint, diffuse blobs of emission surrounding a brighter core.
When the EIT images are compared with near-simultaneous magnetograms from the SOHO Michelson Doppler Imager (MDI), the low-latitude, on-disk plumes are found to overlie regions of mixed polarity, where small
bipoles are in contact with unipolar flux concentrations inside the coronal hole. The birth and decay of the plumes are shown
to be closely related to the emergence of ephemeral regions, their dispersal in the supergranular flow field, and the cancellation
of the minority-polarity flux against the dominant-polarity network elements. In addition to the faint polar and nonpolar
plumes associated with ephemeral regions, we note the existence of two topologically similar coronal structures: the giant
plume-like features that occur above active regions inside coronal holes, and the even larger scale “pseudostreamers” that
separate coronal holes of the same polarity. In all three cases, the basic structure consists of open field lines of a given
polarity overlying a photospheric region of the opposite polarity; ongoing interchange reconnection at the X-point separating
the open field domains from the underlying double-arcade system appears to result in the steady evaporation of material from
the closed into the open region. 相似文献