New Mexico has long been known as a breeding ground for scientific breakthroughs, and space research might be next on the horizon.
UNM, in collaboration with the U.S. military, is researching weather patterns in space.
Gregory Taylor, associate professor in the Physics and Astronomy Department, and Christopher Watts, research professor in the Electrical and Computer Engineering Department, are working closely with UNM students on the Long Wavelength Array project. The project will study how cosmic phenomena affect satellites orbiting the Earth.
Space weather is a bit like Earth weather, Watts said. Storms develop like they do on Earth, and the storms stir up plasma within the upper atmosphere, called the ionosphere. This causes disruptions in radio waves.
These distortions of radio waves have disastrous consequences for communication between Earth and its satellites, Watts said.
"What we want to be able to do is see what looks like a solar flare starting, and we would like to be able to make the best estimate of how that's going to affect Earth's ionosphere and space weather in our local environment," he said.
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The Long Wavelength Array project will allow scientists to take measurements of the sun and solar events that affect the space-weather environment and the ionosphere, Taylor said in an e-mail to the Daily Lobo.
To do this, the LWA uses a low-frequency radio telescope designed to produce high-sensitivity, high-resolution images, he said.
Watts said the Navy, which is funding the LWA project, is interested in finding ways to prevent malfunctions in its GPS satellites. Countless ships at sea need to be able to communicate with one another and have accurate location data, which is provided by these satellites, he said.
Chris Brown / Daily Lobo
Jeffrey Karle, a physics and astronomy graduate student, sits in Northrop Hall's meteorite exhibit on Wednesday. Karle is working on the Long Wavelength Array project, mapping parts of Earth's upper atmosphere.
