International Journal of Application or Innovation in Engineering & Management (IJAIEM)
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Volume 3, Issue 8, August 2014
ISSN 2319 - 4847
Data Extraction for 20 MHz Antenna Signals of
Solar Bursts Type III/1 and Type III/2
1
K.M. Abood, 2L.K. Abood, 1S. F. Ashur and, 3Haydar .R. Al-Baqir,
1
Department of Astronomy and Space, college of science, Baghdad University, Baghdad, Iraq
2
Department of Computer, college of science, Baghdad University, Baghdad, Iraq
3
Department of Astronomy and Space, college of science, Baghdad University, Baghdad, Iraq
ABSTRACT
Solar Radio Bursts which are amongst the first phenomena identified as targets for radio astronomy are studied at frequencies below a few
hundred MHz which has been classified primarily according to its appearance on a dynamic spectrum into 5 types in the 1960s:- Type I,
Type II, Type III, Type IV, and Type V. These bursts are studied , analyzed identified the significant frequencies and classified it especially
of Type III bursts are the most common type of solar radio activity; they are referred to as fast drift bursts from high to lower frequencies.
This type divided into two types: - Type III/1 and Type III/2. Files of type *.spd (Sky Pipe Data) has managed and utilized by writing a
visual basic program. Files of such type involved type III/1 and type III/2 were selected for further analyzed via suitable technique of
signed processing. Results showed that the significant frequencies of the solar radio burst for type III/1 found to be within the range of
(170Hz ≤ ƒ ≤ 195Hz), while that for type III/2 found to be within the range of (60 Hz ≤ ƒ ≤ 85 Hz).
Key word: - Solar Radio Bursts, Radio Astronomy, the Sun
1. INTRODUCTION
The Sun is a giant ball of gases with very high density and temperature. Its main components are hydrogen (about 74%),
helium (about 24%) with small proportion of heaver elements (about 2%) [1]. Furthermore our Sun is classified as a
typical main sequence star with spectral type (G2V), mass (1.989 x 1030) kg, and diameter(1.39 x108) m and with absolute
visual magnitude (4.82m) [2]. The signals that emitted from the sun is the radio signals, the first realization of the
existence of radio signals originating from sources other than Earth’s atmosphere and human-produced was the discovery
of emissions from the Milky Way galaxy by the Bell Laboratories engineer Karl Jansky in the early 1930s [3]. Radio
emission from the Sun is highly variable, and is often much brighter than can be expected in terms of thermal radiation
from the Solar corona. The various kinds of non thermal radio emission are called Solar Radio Bursts [4]. Solar radio
bursts were amongst the first phenomena identified as targets for radio astronomy. It provides an important diagnostic
tool for specifying the magnetic, thermal, and density structures at the time. They additionally provide evidence for
electron acceleration to very high speeds, approaching that of light, as well as powerful shock waves [5, 6]. Radio bursts
do not occur simultaneously at different radio frequencies, but instead drift to lower frequencies at later arrival times.
This is explained by a disturbance that travels out through the progressively more rarefied layers of the solar atmosphere,
exciting plasma waves, which are later converted into radiation. Meter bursts were originally classified (in 1950) into
three types, denoted as type I, type II, and type III, according to their appearance on a dynamic spectrum. Later this
classification was extended to include type IV and V bursts. Detailed investigation of bursts at decimeter wavelength
started in the late 1970s [5, 6]. Characteristic of Type III bursts that studied in this paper is drifts rapidly from high to
low frequencies at about 20 MHz per second [7]. This burst occurs over the frequency range 1 GHz ≥ f ≥ 10 kHz,
corresponding to a height range extending from the low corona to beyond the orbit of the Earth [8]; see Figure (1) [4].
The bursts occur sporadically in isolation or in groups during a persistent storm [7]. Both fundamental and second
harmonic emission is observed, the fundamental emission is highly O mode polarized, and the second harmonic is weakly
(15%) X mode polarized [9].
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Figure (1): Group of type III bursts at February 11, 2000 [4].
There are various subclasses of type III bursts. Inverted-U bursts turn over at some minimum frequency and then drift
back from lower to higher frequency; J bursts are similar to U bursts without returning stroke [7]. Figure (2) illustrates U
bursts to data February 19, 1999[4].
Figure (2): U burst, February 19, 1999 [4].
It is characteristic of the impulsive phase of solar flares: groups of several to several tens of type III bursts are associated
with small to moderate-sized flares. There is also a non-flare associated storm type III burst [4].The exciting agency for
type III bursts is a beam of energetic electrons, with speed 0.1c ≤ v ≤ 0.6c, propagating outward from the Sun through the
corona. These beams provide energy for the plasma emission mechanism. Inverted-U and J bursts are generally
interpreted as being produced by electron beams traveling along closed magnetic field lines [9]. The bursts can be
observed by Radio telescope and collected by Radio Jove, Radio Jove engages students in making and analyzing
observations of the natural radio emissions of the planet, Jupiter and the Sun [6]. these bursts were observed and saved in
extension *.spd in archive of Radio Jove and can be opened by using Radio Sky-Pipe, which is a data collection program
which allows sharing digitally sampled analog data in real-time over the internet [11]. The observation files have the
extension (*.spd) which can be read only by the Radio Sky Pipe program. If we want to process the data of the observation
there are programs that can transform (*.spd) files to (*.TXT) delimits the data into three columns: date, time and signal
strength. Finally, Radio Sky-Pipe contains many options with which we can present and process our observations in many
useful ways. The files of Radio-Sky Pipe in the extension *.spd (Sky Pipe Data) can be opened using a program written in
Visual Basic 6. Data files are using a special format which includes a header followed by the actual data. The header has
a fixed structure, followed by a variable length string called the Note. The length of the Note may be found in the fixed
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header parameter Notelength and is the number of bytes, that is, the number of ASCII characters in the note. The note
may contain additional parameters simply encrypted. Channel labels, for example, are encrypted in the note [10]. The
note includes text information it was seen that there are needed to be away to introduce new parameters into the header
information for these data files in a way which could change over time but maintain backwards compatibility. Thus it was
decided to hide any new parameters into the note and strip them out before the note text is displayed for its original
purpose. That helped us writing a program, using VB to open files in extinction *.spd [10]. Visual Basic program fed
with information of these files in the extension (*.TXT) which contains three columns of three kinds are date, time and
signal strength.
Analysis Type III Radio Sun Bursts
1- The goal of this paper is to, open files of type III/1 and type III/2 radio sun bursts at 20.1 MHz in the extension
(*.spd) by using Visual Basic language to get information of these bursts in the extension (*.TXT).
2- By using MATLAB language, information's have been loaded and calculated Fast Fourier Transform (FFT), power
spectral density (PSD), and frequencies (ƒ) of each burst. The Fourier transform of f(x) is defined by the equation
below, let f(x) is a continuous function of a real variable x [12]:
Where i=
and u is often called the frequency variable. And the inverse Fourier transforms defined by:-
A Fast Fourier Transform (FFT) is an important it used to compute Discrete Fourier Transform (DFT) and its inverse.
The discrete Fourier transforms (DFT) computed with a Fast Fourier Transform (FFT) algorithm, representations and is
given by:-
For u= 0, 1, 2 … N-1, and
For x=0, 1, 2… N-1
Power spectral density function (PSD) shows the strength of the variations (energy) as a function of frequency, can be
found from Fast Fourier Transform (FFT) and it is given by the formula :PSD = │FFT│2
3- Using these calculations to plotting between power spectral densities (PSD) as a function of frequencies (ƒ).
4- calculating the distinct frequencies for different dates and we took them an example of a day 26/3/2003, Figure (3)
represents the original Solar Radio bursts of type III/1 on 26/3/2003 before open it in VB language and the results
from these calculations can be shown in Figure (4).
Figure (3):- The origin Solar Radio burst of type III/1 on 26/3/2003, y-axis represent equivalent temperature and axis the
universal time (UT).
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ƒ1=165.9
ƒ2=185.5
ƒ3=234.3
ƒ4=253.8
Figure (4):- Power Spectral Density (PSD) as a function of frequency (Hz) at date 26/3/2003.
From Figure (4) a determination level, which is taken 15% of each maximum value of PSD, is used, the results from these
calculations are listed in table (1)
Table (1): Type III/1 of observation and frequency bands of the Sun.
Date
DD
26
MM
3
Type bursts
YY
2003
III/1
Duration bursts Temperature (oK)
(sec)
46
3640.100
27
3
2003
III/1
42
1383
1
6
2003
III/1
44
23881
16
6
2004
III/1
59
1367.620
19
2
2005
III/1
76
358833
6
2005
III/1
37
182325
1
Frequency bands (Hz)
ƒ1=165.9
ƒ2=185.5
ƒ3=234.3
ƒ4=253.8
ƒ1=164.4
ƒ2=198.3
ƒ3=203.1
ƒ4=217.6
ƒ1=173
ƒ2=212.3
ƒ3=309
ƒ1=90.74
ƒ2=124.8
ƒ3=151.2
ƒ4=230.6
ƒ1=75.46
ƒ2=98.68
ƒ3=127.7
ƒ1=176.2
ƒ2=209.4
ƒ3=237.5
ƒ1=146.4
ƒ2=198.7
ƒ1=107
ƒ2=168.2
18
2
2007
III/1
49
2415834.980
ƒ3=183.5
ƒ4=229.4
ƒ1=107 .7
6
10
2011
III/1
46
8312.894
ƒ2=197.4
Same calculations applied to the type III/1 will be apply to type III/2. Results for this type are shown in Figure (6), Figure
(5) represent the original solar burst of type III/2 at date 26/3/2003.
5
10
2006
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2146384.604
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Figure (5):- The Solar Radio burst of type III/2 at date 26/3/2003, y-axis represents the equivalent temperature and x-axis
the universal time (UT).
ƒ1=58.45
Figure (6):- Power Spectral Density (PSD) as a function of frequency (Hz) at date 26/3/2003.
From this figure, we are used a determination level which is taken 15% of each maximum value of PSD.
The results are listed in table (2).
Table (2): Type III/2 of observation and frequency bands of the Sun.
Date
Type bursts
Duration bursts
(sec)
Temperature
(oK)
Frequency bands (Hz)
DD
MM
YY
26
3
2003
III/2
45
2938.400
1
4
2003
III/2
74
2034.400
ƒ1=56.48
ƒ2=70.6
26
10
2004
III/2
56
5004068
ƒ1=63.91
ƒ2=95.87
8
11
2004
III/2
17
705.254
ƒ1=66.39
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ƒ1=58.45
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13
1
2005
III/2
62
19324483
ƒ1=91.5
ƒ2=108.1
31
5
2005
III/2
46
256594
ƒ1=61.31
ƒ2=122.6
10
7
2005
III/2
88
143427
30
6
2006
III/2
75
771.650
4
7
2006
III/2
46
256594
6
11
2006
III/2
68
865739.173
ƒ1=143.8
ƒ2=195.2
ƒ3=226
9067.344
ƒ1=143.5
ƒ2=197.3
ƒ3=421.5
ƒ4=439.4
ƒ5=591.9
12
10
2012
III/2
53
ƒ1=108.1
ƒ2=124.7
ƒ1=24.84
ƒ2=42.22
ƒ3=74.51
ƒ1=57.15
ƒ2=62.12
ƒ3=74.54
ƒ4=89.45
Discussion and Conclusions
 According to the results of the study for bursts emitted from the Sun of type III at the time interval (1-6) sec,
Analyzing solar radio bursts of type III with aid of MATLAB language to drawing between PSD and frequencies ,we
taken the existing frequencies within 15% of maximum value of each bursts note when analyzed solar radio bursts of
type III/1 frequencies are calculated these are within the range (170 Hz ≤ ƒ ≤ 195 Hz), and when analyzed solar radio
bursts of type III/2 the frequencies within the range (60 Hz ≤ ƒ ≤ 85 Hz) see table (3-1) and (3-2) respectively, the
frequencies of type III/1 greater than frequencies of type III/2.
 15% of maximum values for each burst have been taken into account since the variations of the values of PSD that
represent in Y-axis of each file have been shown.
 We taken the frequencies within 10% of maximum value of each burst, and did not get good results. While
frequencies within 20% of maximum value of each burst was approximately equal to the frequencies within 10.
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Volume 3, Issue 8, August 2014
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AUTHOR
K.M.Abood, Born in Baghdad, Iraq (1960), BSc. Electric Engineering (1982), MSc. Electronic &
Communication Engineering (1985), PhD. Signal Processing Science, Radio Astronomy (2004).
Scientific Degree: -1993, Assistant Lecturer, 1997, Lecturer , 2003, Assistant Professor, 2013, Professor
Work Address:- Astronomy & Space Department College of Science, University of Baghdad
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