Natural aurorae light up the northern skies.Chris Madeley / Science Photo LibraryPosted on 10/03/2009 8:37:18 PM PDT by neverdem
Auroral experiments make glowing plasma patch.
Natural aurorae light up the northern skies.Chris Madeley / Science Photo LibraryAn experiment that fires powerful radio waves into the sky has created a patch of 'artificial ionosphere', mimicking the uppermost portion of Earth's atmosphere. The research has not only caused glowing dots to appear around these patches — it could also provide a new way to bounce radio signals around the globe.
The High Frequency Active Auroral Research Program (HAARP), near Gakona, Alaska, has spent nearly two decades using radio waves to probe Earth's magnetic field and ionosphere. One of the most obvious results of the experiments is that they can create lights in the sky that are similar to auroras, the glowing curtains of light that naturally appear in the polar skies when electrons and other charged particles pour down from Earth's protective magnetosphere into the upper atmosphere. There, at an altitude of about 250 kilometres, the charged particles collide with molecules of oxygen and nitrogen and make them emit light, similar to the process inside a fluorescent light bulb.
HAARP's high-frequency radio waves can accelerate electrons in the atmosphere, increasing the energy of their collisions and creating a glow. The technique has previously triggered speckles of light while running at a power of almost 1 megawatt1. But since the facility ramped up to 3.6 megawatts — roughly three times more than a typical broadcast radio transmitter — it has created full-scale artificial auroras that are visible to the naked eye.
But in February last year, HAARP managed to induce a strange bullseye pattern in the night sky. Instead of the expected fuzzy, doughnut-shaped blob, surprising irregular luminescent bands radiated out from the centre of the bullseye, says Todd Pedersen, a research physicist at the US Air Force Research Laboratory in Massachusetts, who leads the team that ran the experiment at HAARP.
The team modelled how the energy sent skywards from the HAARP antenna array would trigger these odd shapes. They determined that the areas of the bullseye with strange light patterns were in regions of denser, partially ionized gas in the atmosphere, as measured by ground-based high-frequency radar used to track the ionosphere2.
The scientists believe that these dense patches of plasma could be gas that was ionized by the HAARP emissions. "This is the really exciting part — we've made a little artificial piece of ionosphere," Pedersen says.
"The novelty is not seeing the aurora — it's the fact that we can actually create enough high-energy electrons to form plasma," says Mike Kosch, chair of Experimental Space Science at Lancaster University, UK, and a former co-worker of Pedersen's who was not involved in the experiment. "It shows something completely different and new that we hadn't expected. We didn't know we could do that from a radio array on the ground."
The team's results are published in Geophysical Research Letters2.
"Me, Herb & Travis saw it w/ naked eye!" - Todd Pedersen records in his lab notebook their first glimpse of HAARP's illuminating effect.Todd Pedersen
HAARP's success is down to the fact that it operates at much higher power than any other array running similar experiments, such as the EISCAT (European Incoherent Scatter) Scientific Association's antenna in Norway, which runs at 1.2 megawatts, explains Kosch.
"Whether it's useful or not is another story," he adds, joking that companies might one day hire physicists to use the technology to write glowing advertisements in the night sky. But the costs would be astronomical to create artificial aurora that are visible, he says — the energy costs of running HAARP at full power are more than US$4,000 an hour.
More serious applications might include creating a layer of artificial plasma that could reflect communications from a submarine, for example. The US Air Force, which co-funds HAARP with the British Air Force and others, could use the plasma to reflect radio transmissions, bouncing them farther around the globe without losing power, suggests Pederson.
"Instead of depending entirely on the natural ionosphere to redirect radio waves or short-wave broadcasts," Pedersen says, "we are now getting the capability that we can actually produce our own little ionosphere". The results of the February 2008 experiment "make these concepts seem possible".
ping!
That’s COOL!!
A little monochrome shot. What would it have looked like in living color?
“More serious applications might include creating a layer of artificial plasma that could reflect communications from a submarine, for example. The US Air Force, which co-funds HAARP with the British Air Force and others, could use the plasma to reflect radio transmissions, bouncing them farther around the globe without losing power, suggests Pederson.”
Or, certain tribal areas on the Pakistan/Afghanistan border could be microwaved.
HAARP aka Cheney's Evil Weather Machine.
"Instead of depending entirely on the natural ionosphere to redirect radio waves or short-wave broadcasts," Pedersen says, "we are now getting the capability that we can actually produce our own little ionosphere".AT 4,000 dollars an hour in a patch near and above the site.
I guess they missed something else: SW is passe now that we have the internet.
Look for this activity (HAARP) to have NO commercial value; perhaps 20 years ago when first proposed there might have been some use along the lines they propose, but A LOT has changed since then.
What they REALLY want is - more grant money to keep 'er running ...
“Or, certain tribal areas on the Pakistan/Afghanistan border could be microwaved.”
Great idea. Use the SATs and drones to see them and the antennae array to smoke them. That’s a technology that can be a real time saver.
It’s more revolutionary. reverse the direction of the emission.
Substitute a Genset for an artillery piece. Artillery becomes obsolescent.
Bump!
Man, that dude’s handwriting in his data book is even worse than mine.
Thanks.
I noticed. Flexing their muscles more and more, it seems.
Thanks.
will be interestng to see . .. eventually . . . how much of all that has been true.
Incredible tales.
A lot of folks think the scalar weapons people are a bit crazy. I tend to lean that way. I just put it up for fun.
There had to be reasons that the FEDS treated him shabbily and confiscated all his docs on his death.
It’s not logical that the reason was he was a total idiot.
Therefore what remains to be seen.
I don’t think that HARP rumors are totally empty disinformation either.
What the truth is about HARP remains to be seen.
However, I have a family friend who’s close to some folks working with HARP ongoingly. Some of the stuff he shares is plenty frightful about the capabilities and uses.
“I guess they missed something else: SW is passe now that we have the internet.”
The internet can be controlled. Short wave is a communications back up that not appears can be controlled or least disrupted.
Depends on how exotic their retaliations . . . they can control wide areas of territory fairly quickly fairly easily with a variety of means.
Now how long God’s going to allow such capabilities to remain operational remains to be seen.
I’m confident HE has some BIG surprises in store for them on those scores.
Short wave is a communications back up that noSW can/is controlled too; We're talking the BIG STATIONS here like WWRB and WWCRs of the world.
The 'pirates' around 6950 kHz aren't counted (we ARE talking about a $4,000 an hour charge for operating HAARP you understand ...)
Ahhh, the ham operator’s answer to no sun spots! 10 meter skip here we come!
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