Latest Ionosphere Stories

2008-05-01 11:40:00


2008-04-29 00:20:00

As far as endings go, this one's a real heart breaker. NASA's Polar satellite concludes its successful mission at the end of April with a breathtaking visible-light image of the colorful dancing lights of the aurora. The Polar team has dubbed this final image "The Broken Heart." When the Polar satellite launched February 24, 1996, the plan was for a two-year science mission to study the lights that form a ring around Earth's north and south magnetic poles, known as the Northern and Southern...

2008-01-10 00:00:00


2007-12-19 06:55:00

It has been 35 years since humans last walked on the moon, but there has been much recent discussion about returning, either for exploration or to stage a mission to Mars. However, there are concerns about potential radiation danger for astronauts during long missions on the lunar surface. A significant part of that danger results from solar storms, which can shoot particles from the sun to Earth at nearly the speed of light and can heat oxygen in the Earth's ionosphere and send it in a...

2007-11-16 10:55:00

With ESA's Mars Express, scientists continue to gain new insight into the mysterious Martian environment. Some of the most exciting results are being sent back by the MARSIS (Mars Advanced Radar for Subsurface and Ionospheric Sounding) experiment. MARSIS transmits low frequency radio waves towards the planet's surface and records the echoes of the different layers. Although Mars is sometimes described as the most Earth-like of all the planets, there are many differences between the two...

2007-11-14 12:50:00

Something strange is happening in the atmosphere above Africa and researchers have converged on Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, to discuss the phenomenon. The Africa Space Weather Workshop kicked off Nov. 12th with nearly 100 scientists and students in attendance. The strange phenomenon that brings all these people together is the ion plume"”"a newly discovered form of space weather," says University of Colorado atmospheric scientist and Workshop co-organizer Tim Fuller-Rowell. Researchers...

2007-06-13 08:55:00

A Japanese tether of novel construction could unfold new opportunities in space. NASA is joining a Japanese team in a space experiment that uses reverse origami to show the way to help keep satellites in their proper orbits, or to return spent rocket stages quickly to Earth. Les Johnson of NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center is working with Prof. Hironori A. Fujii of the Tokyo Metropolitan University on the Foldaway Flat Tether Deployment System--or Fortissimo, as it is sometimes called....

2007-02-09 13:00:00


2007-01-03 15:05:00

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. -- While most weather forecasters focus on the six or seven miles of earth's atmosphere where clouds drift and storms form, Jonathan Makela's sights are set much higher. Makela, a University of Illinois electrical- and computer-engineering professor, is working on a way to forecast the weather in the ionosphere, the region of Earth's atmosphere found about 45 to 600 miles above the planet. What happens in the ionosphere - so named because it is heavily ionized by the sun's...

2006-09-27 09:14:59

Strong solar flares cause Global Positioning System (GPS) receivers to fail, Cornell researchers have discovered. Because solar flares -- larger-than-normal radiation "burps" by the sun -- are generally unpredictable, such failures could be devastating for "safety-of-life" GPS operations -- such as navigating passenger jets, stabilizing floating oil rigs and locating mobile phone distress calls. "If you're driving to the beach using your car's navigation system, you'll be OK. If you're on a...

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2004-10-19 04:45:40


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