Sources of Radio Noise on the Planet Jupiter

Abstract

THE discovery in 1955 by Burke and Franklin1 of a source of radio noise corresponding to the position of the planet Jupiter was confirmed by Shain2, who reviewed a series of old records taken in an investigation of cosmic noise at 18.3 Mc./s. during 1950–51. Shain found that certain noise bursts, which previously had been assumed to be interference, corresponded to the times when Jupiter was passing through the reception beam of the aerial system. He then expressed the times at which these noise bursts occurred in terms of the System I and System II zenocentric longitudes used for Jupiter (corresponding respectively to rotation periods of 9h. 50m. 30s. in the equatorial belt and 9h. 55m. 40.6s. for the rest of the planet) and found that a certain periodicity was shown in the System II longitudes, corresponding to a localized source at a longitude of 67°. The results were correlated, so far as possible, with visual observations made by the Jupiter Section of the British Astronomical Association, and the possible identification of the noise source with a visual disturbance in the Southern Temperate Belt was discussed.