Classification of solar radio bursts and the dynamic spectrograph
Clasificación de estallidos solares de radio y espectrógrafo dinámico
- Date
- 1950 · confidence high
- Place
- CSIRO Radiophysics Laboratory, Sydney, New South Wales, Australia
- Credited to
- Paul Wild and Lindsay McCready, building on earlier work by Ruby Payne-Scott and Joseph Pawsey
- Field
- Cosmos & Earth
What was discovered
The Radiophysics team classified solar radio bursts into types (I, II, III) from their spectrum and developed the dynamic spectrograph to follow them in frequency and time. It showed the bursts are signals from electrons accelerated in the corona.
Ruby Payne-Scott detected the first bursts with interferometry in 1945-1946 and was a pioneer in identifying their solar origin; her career was cut short by the rules of the time that forced married women to leave their jobs.
What it led to
- radio heliographs and solar activity monitoring
- space weather
- understanding of coronal mass ejections