Occultation Theory of Jovian Radio Outbursts

Abstract

IT has been suggested by Strom and Strom¹ that the sporadic decameter radio energy attributed to the planet Jupiter does not actually originate on that body, but comes rather from a distant background of discrete sources or ‘radio stars’. According to the Stroms, the Jovian ionosphere could act as a gigantic spherical lens to focus energy on the Earth when these discrete sources are temporarily occulted by Jupiter. This theory is rendered more plausible by the work of Grossi, Strom and Strom², which shows that the ionosphere of the Earth itself may behave as such a lens in the frequency region of 5–30 Mc/s. The well-established correlation of the Jovian outbursts with the rotation of that planet is explained as a result of a magnetic field, tilted with respect to Jupiter's axis of rotation, which is presumed to introduce a periodic modulation in the focusing mechanism.