| NSF Org: |
AGS Division of Atmospheric and Geospace Sciences |
| Recipient: |
|
| Initial Amendment Date: | June 22, 2016 |
| Latest Amendment Date: | August 10, 2018 |
| Award Number: | 1638697 |
| Award Instrument: | Standard Grant |
| Program Manager: |
Carrie E. Black
cblack@nsf.gov (703)292-2426 AGS Division of Atmospheric and Geospace Sciences GEO Directorate for Geosciences |
| Start Date: | July 1, 2016 |
| End Date: | June 30, 2019 (Estimated) |
| Total Intended Award Amount: | $39,125.00 |
| Total Awarded Amount to Date: | $46,559.00 |
| Funds Obligated to Date: |
FY 2018 = $7,434.00 |
| History of Investigator: |
|
| Recipient Sponsored Research Office: |
100 WILLIAM T MORRISSEY BLVD DORCHESTER MA US 02125-3300 (617)287-5370 |
| Sponsor Congressional District: |
|
| Primary Place of Performance: |
100 Morrissey Blvd. Boston MA US 02125-3393 |
| Primary Place of
Performance Congressional District: |
|
| Unique Entity Identifier (UEI): |
|
| Parent UEI: |
|
| NSF Program(s): | SOLAR-TERRESTRIAL |
| Primary Program Source: |
01001819DB NSF RESEARCH & RELATED ACTIVIT |
| Program Reference Code(s): |
|
| Program Element Code(s): |
|
| Award Agency Code: | 4900 |
| Fund Agency Code: | 4900 |
| Assistance Listing Number(s): | 47.050 |
ABSTRACT
For centuries, total solar eclipses have provided unique opportunities to study the Sun and the Earths atmosphere. They rarely occur across the continental United States. In August of 2017, an eclipse will travel through the heart of the nation and across the entire continent. Eclipses provide a period of relative quiet in the atmosphere as the radiation from the sun is blocked by the moon. This project will take full advantage of crowdsourcing techniques and inexpensive modern technologies to measure the response of the upper atmosphere (the ionosphere) to low frequency radio waves, thus giving new insight into characteristics of the atmosphere that are not well understood. This project is important to national interests as disturbances to the ionosphere are known to modulate radio waves and in some extreme cases, block them entirely. This project also broadens scientific participation through its involvement of students from high school through graduate school and the general public. Additionally, the project is led by an interdisciplinary team of scientists from underrepresented minorities.
Transmitters in two locations (Dixon Naval Radio Transmitter Facility in Sacramento, CA and National Institute of Standards and Technology in Fort Collins, CO) will broadcast at low frequencies (LF), probing the D and E regions of the ionosphere. Receivers across the continental US installed and manned by students and the general public will collect the amplitude data at the given frequencies. A subset of these receivers will also collect phase change data. The goal of this project is to use the collected date to examine how the amplitude and phase changes are affected by eclipse path and the relative distance/locations of the transmitter-receiver pairs. The data collected will be processed in collaboration with the LF Radio Lab at the Georgia Institute of Technology for ionization and recombination behavior of the D and E layers. The results and the data collected will be publicly available through the EclipseMob web presence.
PUBLICATIONS PRODUCED AS A RESULT OF THIS RESEARCH
Note:
When clicking on a Digital Object Identifier (DOI) number, you will be taken to an external
site maintained by the publisher. Some full text articles may not yet be available without a
charge during the embargo (administrative interval).
Some links on this page may take you to non-federal websites. Their policies may differ from
this site.
PROJECT OUTCOMES REPORT
Disclaimer
This Project Outcomes Report for the General Public is displayed verbatim as submitted by the Principal Investigator (PI) for this award. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this Report are those of the PI and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation; NSF has not approved or endorsed its content.
In preparation for EclipseMob 2.0, we redesigned the EclipseMob DIY receiver from the ground up to eliminate the technical issues discovered during EclipseMob 2017. The new LF receiver design uses an ADC, microcontroller, Raspberry Pi, and mini display instead of a smartphone. The new architecture eliminates the need to account for variation between participants’ personal devices, is not impacted by the recent elimination of audio jacks on newer devices, and is more inclusive to participants without smartphones. Bench tests have verified the operation of the new design, which will be used for the 2024 EclipseMob 2.0 effort.
Lessons we've learned conducting outreach and recruiting from the general population for participation in EclipseMob data collection will add to the knowledge base in characteristics of successful citizen science efforts and will facilitate success in EclipseMob 2.0.
Because this is a citizen science effort, it reaches people who are (or will be) working in a wide variety of disciplines. The aim is that citizens with a variety of backgrounds and pathways will gain an understanding of the science behind the effect of a solar eclipse on the ionosphere, as well as an appreciation for data collection efforts. At a high level, the project has the potential to have a significant impact on scientific literacy for participants.
Last Modified: 07/24/2019
Modified by: Kiersten Kerby-Patel
Please report errors in award information by writing to: awardsearch@nsf.gov.
