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Lighning Signature Could Help Reveal Solar System Origins May 07, 2012 Every second, lightning flashes some 50 times on Earth. Togetherthese discharges coalesce and get stronger, creatingelectromagnetic waves circling around Earth, to create a beatingpulse between the ground and the lower ionosphere, about 60 milesup in the atmosphere. This electromagnetic signature, known asSchumann Resonance, had only been observed from Earth's surfaceuntil, in 2011, scientists discovered they could also detect itusing NASA's Vector Electric Field Instrument (VEFI) aboard theU.S. Air Force's Communications/Navigation Outage Forecast System(C/NOFS) satellite. In a paper published on May 1 in The Astrophysical Journal,researchers describe how this new technique could be used to studyother planets in the solar system as well, and even shed light onhow the solar system formed. "The frequency of Schumann Resonance depends not only on the sizeof the planet but on what kinds of atoms and molecules exist in theatmosphere because they change the electrical conductivity," saysFernando Simoes, the first author on this paper and a spacescientist at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md."So we could use this technique remotely, say from about 600 milesabove a planet's surface, to look at how much water, methane andammonia is there." Water, methane and ammonia are collectively referred to as"volatiles" and the fact that there are different amounts ondifferent planets is a tantalizing clue to the way the planetsformed. Determining the composition of a planet's atmosphere can bedone with a handful of other techniques -- techniques that arequite accurate, but can only measure specific regions. By lookingat the Schumann Resonance, however, one can get information aboutthe global density of, say, water around the entire planet. Simoesand his colleagues believe that combining this technique with otherinstruments on a spacecraft's visit to a planet could provide amore accurate inventory of the planet's atmosphere. "And if we can get a better sense of the abundance of these kindsof atoms in the outer planets," says Simoes, "We would know moreabout the abundance in the original nebula from which the solarsystem evolved." Accurate descriptions of planetary atmospheres might also help shedlight on how the evolution of the solar system left the outerplanets with a high percentage of volatiles, but not the innerplanets. Detecting Schumann Resonance from above still requires theinstruments to be fairly close to the planet, so this techniquecouldn't be used to investigate from afar the atmospheres ofplanets outside our solar system. Instead, scientists imaginesomething much more dramatic. After a spacecraft is finishedobserving a planet, it could continue to detect Schumann resonanceas it begins its death dive into the atmosphere. During the processof self-destruction, the spacecraft would still provide valuablescientific data until the very last minute of its existence. We are high quality suppliers, our products such as China P2P IP Camera , Infrared Bullet Camera Manufacturer for oversee buyer. To know more, please visits P2P IP Camera.
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