What is tomography? What do we do with it?
Tomography is a technique in monitoring electron precipitation and microblasts along the van Allen probes on the radiation belts. This refers to measurement of charged particles emitted by the sun that can cause fluctuation in radio waves as it travels through mediums (space and upper atmosphere, mainly ionosphere). These fluctuations causes delays in transmitting radio signals from GPS satellites, creating inaccuracies for the receiver on earth’s surface. Additional data, in form of density of electrons, are needed to further study this phenomenon. We are using a dual frequency GPS receiver which outputs information on Doppler Effect in radar system, positional data, signal strength, and the corresponding satellite numbers for each data set. From there, collected data are run through programs to read the Total Electron Content or quantitative evaluation of the precipitated electrons. This then tells in latitude and longitude coordinates where there are interceptions of signal between receiver and satellites.
Fun Fact: This research was conducted during the campaign in Kiruna, Sweden and also during the campaign in Fairbanks, Alaska. The instrument is one of the two ground based instrument in USIP, besides Airglow team’s All-sky imager, due to greater feasibility of performing constant calibration of receiver-to-satellite position on ground.
Fun Fact: This research was conducted during the campaign in Kiruna, Sweden and also during the campaign in Fairbanks, Alaska. The instrument is one of the two ground based instrument in USIP, besides Airglow team’s All-sky imager, due to greater feasibility of performing constant calibration of receiver-to-satellite position on ground.
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Image Source: https://plus.maths.org/issue47/features/budd/GPS.jpg
Image Source: https://plus.maths.org/issue47/features/budd/GPS.jpg