ORIGINAL RESEARCH article

Front. Astron. Space Sci.

Sec. Space Physics

Volume 12 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fspas.2025.1564037

Simultaneous Observations of Irregular Sporadic E Structures with the LWA and a DPS4D

Provisionally accepted
Kenneth S. ObenbergerKenneth S. Obenberger1*C A TaylorC A Taylor2J ColmanJ Colman1E DaoE Dao1J DowellJ Dowell2J V EcclesJ V Eccles3D J EmmonsD J Emmons4C T FallenC T Fallen5J M HolmesJ M Holmes1G B TaylorG B Taylor2
  • 1Space Vehicles Directorate, Air Force Research Laboratory, Albuquerque, United States
  • 2University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, New Mexico, United States
  • 3Space Dynamics Laboratory, Utah State University, Logan, Utah, United States
  • 4Air Force Institute of Technology, Wright-Patterson AFB, Ohio, United States
  • 5Fourth State Communications, LLC, Cheyenne, Wyoming, United States

The final, formatted version of the article will be published soon.

Select one of your emails

You have multiple emails registered with Frontiers:

Notify me on publication

Please enter your email address:

If you already have an account, please login

You don't have a Frontiers account ? You can register here

We present simultaneous observations of dense sporadic E (E s ) structures using the Long Wavelength Array (LWA) radio telescopes and a Digisonde Portable Sounder 4D (DPS4D). Our coordinated observations show that the LWA radio telescopes in central New Mexico can reliably locate regions of dense Es structures as they pass over a Digisonde over 500 km away in Texas.The LWA is most sensitive to the densest E s structures which also appear to contain irregularities with vertical structure, possibly turbulent. These irregularities cause off-zenith backscatter as seen by the DPS4D and are observed to move at speeds of a few 10s of m/s. The irregularities also appear to act as a phase screen, producing short-lived daytime spread F as well as spread E conditions. We hypothesize that turbulent structures driven by the Kelvin Helmholtz instability may be responsible for the observations.

Keywords: sporadic E, Kelvin Helmholtz instability, Mid-latitude spread F, HF propagation, Ionosonde, Ionosphere

Received: 20 Jan 2025; Accepted: 28 Mar 2025.

Copyright: © 2025 Obenberger, Taylor, Colman, Dao, Dowell, Eccles, Emmons, Fallen, Holmes and Taylor. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

* Correspondence: Kenneth S. Obenberger, Space Vehicles Directorate, Air Force Research Laboratory, Albuquerque, United States

Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.

Supplementary Material