CUTLASS GLITTERS IN THE SKY

Wednesday June 5th, 1996
Source: The Times Interface supplement
Nick Nuttall on an experiment to solve the sun's mysteries

Man-made auroras are being generated in the skies over northern Europe as part of a unique radar-based experiment which has just been officially opened by Ian Taylor, the space minister.

A transmitter at Tromso in northern Norway is generating mini-fireworks in the atmosphere which are being monitored and mapped by the Collaborative UK Twin Location Aurora Sounding System (Cutlass). Designed and built by the University of Leicester. Cutlass sweeps its vast radar beams over an area of three million square kilometres.

Tudor Jones of the university's radio and space plasma physics group says the man-made auroras are detectable and might be mistaken for tiny versions of the real aurora borealis, or Northern Lights, generated by the sun. They are part of a long term experiment to unravel the mysteries of the sun's relationship with Earth.

Cutlass which has 50ft high radar antennae at Hankasalmi, Iceland, can detect these changes or ripples in the atmosphere with an accuracy of about 50 sq km.

The network which is sited on the Artic Circle, is actually a two-tiered system of big and small antennae. The big array can work out the location and scattering of these sun-induced electrical and magnetic events and the smaller ones can pinpoint the height. The speed and direction of these upper atmosphere electrical events can be worked out by combining the two readings.

Professor Jones says they have already discovered that the flows of energy in the atmosphere are far more sophisticated than had previously been thought. The energy flows have "eddies and whirlpools and waterfalls" with "very strong flows of current from East to West and then suddenly from West to East".

The radars will play a vital role in the European Space Agency's Cluster mission, scheduled for launch from French Guiana this week, which will deploy four spacecraft that will fly in formation to detect solar wind.

Already in space is Soho, the Solar Heliosperic Observatory, which is monitoring the sun's face for explosions and violent events.

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