passive sounding Archives - Astrobiology

Frequency band available for passive sounding for each icy moon. The upper value of 900 kHz is due to the cutoff frequency of the UKR source. The green bar extends down to the plasma frequency upper limit derived from scaling to Europa’s peak ionospheric electron densities ( Figure 7) and scale heights. These upper limits are aggressively pessimistic given that, unlike Europa, Uranian icy moons do not reside in a plasma torus nor are they expected to be active. The yellow bars cover the uncertain range between the plasma frequency upper limit and the ambient plasma frequency in the Uranian system (f ' 9 kHz). Even with these pessimistic upper bounds, a significant portion of the spectrum of UKR emissions penetrate through the icy moon ionospheres and allows for passive sounding. -- astro-ph.EP

Ariel, Icy Worlds, Miranda, Oberon, Press Release, Titania, Umbriel, Uranus

Feasibility of Passive Sounding of Uranian Moons using Uranian Kilometric Radiation

by Keith CowingMay 9, 2023December 18, 2023

We present a feasibility study for passive sounding of Uranian icy moons using Uranian Kilometric Radio (UKR) emissions in the 100 – 900 kHz band.