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Telluric Origin of the Whistler Medium

Abstract

IT has recently become apparent that the ionized medium surrounding the Earth and responsible for the transmission of radio whistlers must be of telluric origin. When radio whistlers were first explained by Storey1, and it was shown that concentrations of several hundred electrons per c.c. existed at distances of several Earth-radii from the Earth's centre, it was rather generally accepted that the medium must be of solar or interplanetary origin, as it did not seem possible to conceive any extension of the Earth's atmosphere to so high an altitude. Arguments are presented here to show that the medium cannot be of solar or interplanetary origin, and a mechanism is suggested for a telluric origin of the medium.

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JOHNSON, F. Telluric Origin of the Whistler Medium. Nature 184, 1787–1788 (1959). https://doi.org/10.1038/1841787b0

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/1841787b0

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