Atmospheric diffraction type of dust in the atmosphere. The ionosphere is a layer of partially ionized gases high above the majority of the Earth's atmosphere; these gases are ionized by cosmic rays originating on the sun. When radio waves travel into this zone, which commences about 80 kilometers above the earth, they experience diffraction in a manner similar to the visible light phenomenon described above. In this case some of the electromagnetic energy is bent in a large arc, such that it can return to the Earth's surface at a very distant point (on the order of hundreds of kilometers from the
Earth–Moon–Earth communication facility to rotate antennas to adjust polarization. Another component is Faraday rotation on the Earth-Moon-Earth path; the plane of polarization of radio waves rotates as they pass through ionized layers of the Earth's atmosphere. This effect is more pronounced at lower VHF frequencies and becomes less significant at 1296 MHZ and above. Some of the polarization mismatch loss can be alleviated by using a larger antenna array (more Yagi elements or a larger dish). Earth–Moon–Earth communication Earth–Moon–Earth communication (EME), also known as moon bounce, is a radio communications technique that relies on the propagation of radio waves from an Earth-based