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From: sw@cbnewsl.att.com (Stuart Warmink)
Newsgroups: sci.space
Subject: Re: Galileo probe hears AM radio stations
Keywords: plasma wave detector
Message-ID: <1991Jun18.201936.27914@cbnewsl.att.com>
Date: 18 Jun 91 20:19:36 GMT
References: <1991Jun18.191645.10177@cbfsb.att.com>
Organization: Interface Systems @ Bell Labs
Lines: 29

In article <1991Jun18.191645.10177@cbfsb.att.com>, wa2ise@cbnewsb.cb.att.com (robert.f.casey) writes:
> In the June 8 Science News (vol 139, page 356), at the end of article
> "Startling Tales from the Magnetotail" the last paragraph says that
> Galileo's plasma wave detector detected AM radio station signals when
> the probe was in the Earth's magnetic tail.  Guess this sets a record
> for the longest DX of AM stations! [...]

But the only two times that Galileo was anywhere near the Earth's magnetotail,
Galileo was relatively close to Earth, surely? At launch it was inside the
Van Allen belts, so that may not even count - and immediatly after launch
it may well have been in the magnetotail for a short while, but because
of Galileo's trajectory (towards the Sun) it couldn't have been for very
long, if it went through it at all. But the instruments hadn't been powered
up anyway!

The second time was during last December's fly-by. Can't remember the exact
distance, but it was on the order of a few hundred miles at closest
approach I think. Before and after closest approach Galileo would have been
in the magnetotail too, but as it was traveling at right angles to the tail
Galileo couldn't have encountered it too far from Earth? Just wondering...

-- 
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Stuart Warmink, Whippany, NJ, USA  |  sw@cbnewsl.ATT.COM  |  Atoms are Good
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Stuart Warmink, Whippany, NJ, USA  |  sw@cbnewsl.ATT.COM  |       Hi!
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