China creates the world's first millimeter-wave solar radio observatory / 中国开发世界首台毫米波太阳射电观测仪器
The eruption of solar flares is the main source of disastrous space weather. The high-energy particles and strong electromagnetic radiation generated can directly threaten the safety of space activities such as human space facilities and deep space exploration, and also increase navigation errors and lead to interruption of communications. Through the independent development of solar microwave radiation detection instruments, first-hand scientific data can be obtained, scientific research on the mechanism of flare outbreaks and particle acceleration can be carried out, and it can also assist in the early warning and forecast of space disasters, and provide guarantee for the safety of space activities.
Traditional solar radio instruments focus on detection equipment below 18 GHz, with only a few frequency points above 18 GHz. For the study of flare physics, observation instruments need to be deployed in higher frequency bands to obtain a complete measurement of the radiation spectrum. In order to fill the gap of observation data in the millimeter-wave band, the Chinese team began to propose and develop a ground-based solar radio spectrum observation system in the 35-40GHz frequency domain at the end of 2017.
The instrument realizes scanning observation of 5GHz bandwidth in the range of 35-40GHz, the system noise figure is ~300K, the system linearity is greater than 0.9999, the time resolution is 5ms~1.3s (~134ms, default), and the frequency resolution is 153kHz. The instrument prototype has been in regular operation for more than two years, accumulating a large amount of observation data, and is expected to observe more flare data in the upcoming 25th week of the peak year of solar activity. During the development of the instrument, the team broke through a series of key technologies such as millimeter-wave high-precision detection, parallel real-time processing of GHz sampling data, and flatness processing of broadband signals. , authorized 4 national invention patents based on instrument implementation methods, etc., and obtained the support of the National Natural Science Foundation of China and the university.