Radio Telescope Project

Radio Telescope Project

Alvin Sherman Library 4009

Burke and Franklin discovered that Jupiter emits radio waves through the construction on antenna much like Radio JOVE project. Jupiter has an extremely large magnetosphere, which allows Jupiter to emit radio signals that can be received on earth. The moon Io leaves behind large clouds of charged particles as it orbits Jupiter due to its volcanic atmosphere, which interacts with Jupiter’s magnetosphere causing radio storms. The position of the sun can have a large effect on the incoming radio signals to Earth because the sun ionizes Earth's magnetosphere causing the absorption of radio waves. The position of Jupiter is also important when listening to radio waves, the best being when Jupiter is in superior conjunction. There are two types of signals being listened to: L- bursts and S-bursts, which result from three different storms: Io-A, Io-B, and Io-C. The best storm to receive signals from is the Io-B storm. Storms were predicted by using tables provided by the University of Florida Astronomy Department website, the Radio Sky Pipe software, and the Radio JOVE website. The storms usually occurred every thirty-five days and signals were recorded for approximately five hours.

Two pieces make up the Radio JOVE project: the antenna and the receiver. The antenna is composed of two dipoles consisting of copper wire, insulators, and coax cable, which together allow incoming signals to be sent to the receiver without being lost or distorted. Signals are coming in 20.1MHz, and are amplified by the receiver and are converted into audio signals.