Exploration of Heliosphere by Interplanetary Scintillation

Abstract

The Physical Research Laboratory has been engaged in setting up a three station radio observatory operating at a frequency of 103 MHz in Western India for exploration of the heliosphere by interplanetary scintillation (IPS) technique. The three radio telescopes are situated at Thaltej (Ahmedabad), Rajkot and Surat and are separated by about 200 km from each other. These are being operated as “transit” telescopes in correlation interferometer mode with excellent relative time accuracy for interplanetary scintillation observations of compact radio sources.

IPS observations of different scintillating radio sources are made over a wide range of their solar elongations. Such IPS observations enable the determination of not only the solar wind velocity at different heliolatitudes and other travelling interplanetary disturbances but also the structure of heliosphere upto a distance of about 1.0 AU.