Radio astronomy can be recorded and pieced together in a mosaic image. The type of instrument used depends on the strength of the signal and the amount of detail needed. Observations from the Earth's surface are limited to wavelengths that can pass through the atmosphere. At low frequencies, or long wavelengths, transmission is limited by the ionosphere, which reflects waves with frequencies less than its characteristic plasma frequency. Water vapor interferes with radio astronomy at higher frequencies, which has led to building radio observatories that conduct observations at millimeter wavelengths at very high and dry sites, in order to minimize the water
Atmospheric wave vary. Generally, waves are either excited by heating or dynamic effects, for example the obstruction of the flow by mountain ranges like the Rocky Mountains in the U.S. or the Alps in Europe. Heating effects can be small-scale (like the generation of gravity waves by convection) or large-scale (the formation of Rossby waves by the temperature contrasts between continents and oceans in the Northern hemisphere winter). Atmospheric waves transport momentum, which is fed back into the background flow as the wave dissipates. This wave forcing of the flow is particularly important in the stratosphere, where this momentum deposition by planetary