The EMBLA 2000 Mission in Hessdalen
Abstract
In August 2000 a team of italian physical scientists, working in collaboration with norwegian colleagues from Østfold College, carried out an instrumental expedition in Hessdalen (Norway), which was just the first of a series of future scientific missions planned by the joint italian-norwegian EMBLA Project. The mission was aimed at studying unexplained anomalous atmospheric luminous phenomena occurring in the Hessdalen valley since about 20 years, and it was firstly devoted to the monitor of the radio spectrum in the UHF, VLF and ELF wavelength ranges, secondly to the study of the typology of luminous phenomena. This paper presents an ample introduction describing the analysis of the data acquired in the period 1998-2000 by means of the norwegian automatic videocamera of the Hessdalen Interactive Observatory: the hourly and monthly statistics of the luminous phenomenon and its spatial distribution over the celestial sphere are shown. The paper is then focussed into the results which were obtained with the employed radio spectrum analyzers of the EMBLA team, in particular the discovery of highly anomalous periodic signals of unknown origin which were caracterized by a spike-like and a Doppler-like morphology and which were mostly detected in the VLF radio range. It is shown that the Doppler shift, supposed to be due to a `particle-like' emitting source, ranges in a very short time from 10.000 up-to 100.000 km/sec with a frequency shift which is both red-wards and blue-wards, by changing periodically. Subsequently the physical interpretation is presented and discussed: (a) the occurrence of spike-like signals may be due to the pulsation of a radio-emitting source or alternatively to the rotation of a spheroidal source with a radio-emitting spot on its surface; (b) the very high measured velocities involved in the Doppler-like signals, together with the periodic inversion of the Doppler shift, are hypothesized to be due to a physical mechanism involving the magnetically collimated acceleration of high-energy particles modulated by the rotation of a self-contained `plasma spheroid' whose magnetic axis is misaligned in comparison with its rotation axis. Moreover, a detailed description of the luminous phenomena which were sighted during the many planned skywatching sessions, is presented, together with photo-analysis and point-spread functions of enhanced frames. Finally, a detailed plan for future optical observations and analysis is shown in the appendix, in which photometric and spectroscopic techniques by means of portable scout instrumentation are described.
- Publication:
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NIDS (http://www.nidsci.org
- Pub Date:
- November 2000
- Bibcode:
- 2000NIDS..rept....T