wa2ise@cbnewsb.cb.att.com (robert.f.casey) (06/19/91)
In the June 8 Science News (vol 139, page 356), at the end of article "Startling Tales from the Magnetotail" the last paragraph says that Galileo's plasma wave detector detected AM radio station signals when the probe was in the Earth's magnetic tail. Guess this sets a record for the longest DX of AM stations! The article doesn't say which band it heard the stations, But here in USA, AM is usually means MW.
sw@cbnewsl.att.com (Stuart Warmink) (06/19/91)
In article <1991Jun18.191645.10177@cbfsb.att.com>, wa2ise@cbnewsb.cb.att.com (robert.f.casey) writes: > In the June 8 Science News (vol 139, page 356), at the end of article > "Startling Tales from the Magnetotail" the last paragraph says that > Galileo's plasma wave detector detected AM radio station signals when > the probe was in the Earth's magnetic tail. Guess this sets a record > for the longest DX of AM stations! [...] But the only two times that Galileo was anywhere near the Earth's magnetotail, Galileo was relatively close to Earth, surely? At launch it was inside the Van Allen belts, so that may not even count - and immediatly after launch it may well have been in the magnetotail for a short while, but because of Galileo's trajectory (towards the Sun) it couldn't have been for very long, if it went through it at all. But the instruments hadn't been powered up anyway! The second time was during last December's fly-by. Can't remember the exact distance, but it was on the order of a few hundred miles at closest approach I think. Before and after closest approach Galileo would have been in the magnetotail too, but as it was traveling at right angles to the tail Galileo couldn't have encountered it too far from Earth? Just wondering... -- ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Stuart Warmink, Whippany, NJ, USA | sw@cbnewsl.ATT.COM | Atoms are Good ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ -- ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Stuart Warmink, Whippany, NJ, USA | sw@cbnewsl.ATT.COM | Hi! ------------------------------------------------------------------------------