Schumann resonance: a tool to study planetary atmospheric electricity and the origin and evolution of the solar system

Investigation of extremely low frequency electromagnetic waves produced by lightning activity has been used to assist the characterization of a variety of phenomena related to atmospheric electricity in the Earth environment. Detection of Schumann Resonance spectral features of the earth-ionosphere cavity from outside the cavity offers new remote sensing capabilities to assess tropospheric-space weather connections, namely periodic patterns observed in a variety of tropospheric, ionospheric, and magnetospheric processes. A link between the water mixing ratio and atmospheric electrical conductivity makes Schumann resonance a suitable tool to assess volatile abundance of the outer planets, offering new capabilities to constrain thermodynamic parameters of the protosolar nebula from which the solar system evolved. In this work we discuss a technique and associated instrumentation to detect Schumann resonance signatures of planetary environments and subsequently to infer the fraction of volatiles and to investigate weather patterns in the gaseous envelopes of the giant planets.