Smoke Particle Impact Detector (SPID) is a faraday cup impact probe designed and built by the University of Tromso (UIT). Its main purpose is to measure nanometer sized smoke particles (in-situ) in the atmosphere, and to do that it needs to be launched on a sounding rocket. Its design is an open faraday cup with grids to shield out ambient plasma and a larger slanted impact grid to measure the ...

The plasma line in the incoherent scatter spectrum is known to provide information about the state of the ionosphere. However, it is weak in signal strength and therefore difficult to measure reliably and consistently. When high-energetic electrons (suprathermal electrons) are present in the ionosphere the plasma line echo power is enhanced and detectable by more radars. Recent measurements made by ...

In order to make advances in studies of mesoscale ionospheric phenomena, a new type of ionosonde is needed. This ionosonde should be relatively inexpensive and small form factor. It should also be well suited for operation in a network of transmit and receiver sites that are operated cooperatively in order to measure vertical and oblique paths between multiple transmitters and receivers in the ...

New empirical Kp-based models for the equatorward and poleward boundaries of the auroral oval in the Northern and Southern Hemispheres were developed, with the purpose of reviewing the auroral ovals predicted by well-established Feldstein auroral oval model. The new models were derived from particle and energy flux measurements from six low-altitude (800-900 km) POES/MetOp satellites. The equatorward ...

The mesosphere is perhaps the least explored region in the atmosphere with very few methods of observing. This thesis will primarily be exploring a new technique for measuring the distribution of kinetic energy in the mesosphere across a wide range of spatial and temporal scales. The method being used relies on correlation functions between pairs of meteor measurements. These measurements are made ...

The rapid rotation of Jupiter and Saturn, combined with internal source of plasma provided by their moons Io and Enceladus respectively, creates a magnetodisk structure of the planetary magnetic field. The magnetodisk looks like a stretched dipole magnetic field in the equatorial region, where centrifugal force is largest. The centrifugal force, originating in the rotating frame, is known to have ...

The Parker Solar Probe (PSP) mission by NASA and the Solar Orbiter (SolO) mission by ESA are two recently launched missions that measure dust in the inner solar system. The dust is produced by fragmentation of meteoroids, which are large fragments of the asteroids and comets. The dust particles are small enough that their motion is affected by the radiation pressure force from the Sun. Dust fragments ...

The partly ionized ionosphere responds differently to high power, high frequency radio waves based on the wave frequency, the wave power, the wave polarization, and the propagation angle relative to the magnetic field. Ionospheric modification experiments are conducted to investigate the responses and their dependencies, setting experimental constraints on the contributions from non-resonant collisional ...

Polar Mesospheric Winter Echoes (PMWE) are strong coherent radar echoes, from the upper mesosphere at 55-85 km that are observed typically from end of August until beginning of May. Some models to explain PMWE formation suggest that they form because of turbulence in the atmosphere. Other models suggest that the PMWEs form like summer polar mesospheric echoes (PMSE) where charged dust particles ...

The ionosphere is a region of the upper atmosphere where a significant rate of photo-ionisation from solar ultraviolet radiation cause an increased plasma density. In this region a system of electrical currents flow, driven by electric fields generated by fluctuating dynamics within the Earths magnetosphere. These fluctuating dynamics are caused by interactions between the magnetosphere and the solar ...