22 July 2010

Last night in Longyearbyen

Tomorrow early morning (0300), the bus comes to pick up all the passengers for the 0450 flight out of Longyearbyen. I have enjoyed my time here and hopefully I can return in the future!

Yesterday I contacted a professor at UNIS because he works closely with my advisor. He told me that if I wanted, I could accompany him up to the EISCAT radar dishes up on the mountain because they would be performing an experiment today. Why, yes I would love to come!

We went up the mountain (close to where my Longyearbyen coils are located). There are two EISCAT incoherent scattering radar dishes and SPEAR a radar heating array. The scattering radar detects properties about the electrons in the ionosphere - density, velocity, and temperature - which is mainly used to tell us things about aurora, but can also be useful when looking at the physics behind PiC pulsations and ducting of the PiC waves through the ionosphere.


The 32m dish. It is able to rotate and follow whatever interesting event is chosen.


The 42m dish is fixed. It is aligned along a magnetic field line.


The SPEAR radar heating array. It was recently restarted after a two year no funding hiatus.


SPEAR uses certain frequencies to create waves in the ionosphere. It does not have enough power to create aurora, but it can cause ULF waves which are detected by the magnetometers. SPEAR only has a certain number of frequencies it can utilize so as to not interfere with other communication frequencies. This poses a problem such as today the ionosphere was right below 4 MHz, but the lowest frequency we could use was 4.5 MHz which means SPEAR could not interact with the ionosphere. The radar it was sending up had too much power and was blowing right on through. It is a 'goldielocks' situation. The plasma of the ionosphere has to be just right or no interaction happens.


We do science! By that it means - they look at computer screens and hope that everything works. If a piece of equipment does not work, then we hit it with a hammer and hope that everything works.


Thus ends my Svalbard travels! I am looking forward to sleeping in my own bed, looking after my garden, and getting fresh vegetables. Hurrah for a successful trip!

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