The Sydney Morning Herald today has
an article by Marcus Strom
on the discovery of plasma tubes in the ionosphere using the
128 antenna Murchison Wide Field Array radio telescope in Western Australia.
The discovery was made by Cleo Loi, age 23, whilst still an astrophysics
undergraduate at Sydney University.
Quote:
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Originally Posted by Marcus Strom, Sydney Morning Herald
Ms Loi, who graduated in March, had to overcome the initial scepticism of senior colleagues who thought her observations were too good to be true.
...
Ms Loi divided the array's tiles into two halves using the western half like a right eye and the eastern half like a left eye. Similar to the way humans use sight, she used triangulation to build a three-dimensional dynamic map of the plasma tubes over a large area.
...
Understanding the structures of these ducts is important for astronomers using radio telescopes. The weak electromagnetic signals travelling over millions and billions of light years arrive in our solar system and must pass through the atmosphere before they are detected by radio telescopes. Astronomers must take into account the structure of the atmosphere when trying to understand the signals they receive from quasars, radio galaxies, black holes and similar astronomical entities.
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Loi won the 2015 Bok Prize and will go to Cambridge this year to begin
her PhD.
We wish her the best of luck in her career.
Story, animated GIF of data and video introduction by Loi here -
http://www.smh.com.au/technology/sci...0150601-ghcc9g
Sydney Uni undergraduate discovers plasma tubes in ionosphere
