{"id":255748,"date":"2025-07-24T01:03:32","date_gmt":"2025-07-23T15:03:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/science.nasa.gov\/science-research\/heliophysics\/radio-jove-volunteers-tune-in-to-the-suns-low-notes\/"},"modified":"2025-07-24T01:03:32","modified_gmt":"2025-07-23T15:03:32","slug":"radio-jove-volunteers-tune-in-to-the-suns-low-notes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/?p=255748","title":{"rendered":"Radio JOVE Volunteers Tune In to the Sun\u2019s Low Notes"},"content":{"rendered":"

As the Sun approaches the most active part of its eleven-year magnetic cycle this summer, NASA volunteers have been watching it closely. Now they\u2019ve spotted a new trend in solar behavior that will have you reaching for your suntan lotion. It\u2019s all about something called a \u201cType II\u201d solar radio burst:<\/p>\n

\u201cType II solar radio bursts are not commonly detected in the frequency range between 15 to 30 megahertz,\u201d said Prof. Chuck Higgins, Co-founder of Radio JOVE. \u201cRecently, we\u2019re seeing many of them in that range.\u201d<\/p>\n

Let\u2019s unpack that. Our Sun often sprays powerful blasts of radio waves into space. Heliophysicists classify these radio bursts into five different types depending on how the frequency of the radio waves drifts over time. \u201cType II\u201d solar radio bursts seem to come from solar flares and enormous squirts of hot plasma called coronal mass ejections.<\/p>\n

Now, Thomas Freeman, an undergraduate student at Middle Tennessee State University, and other volunteers working on NASA\u2019s Radio JOVE project have observed something interesting about these Type II bursts: they are now showing up at lower frequencies\u2014somewhere in between FM and AM radio.\u00a0<\/p>\n

What does it mean? It means our star is full of surprises! These Radio JOVE observations of the Sun\u2019s radio emissions during solar maximum can be used to extend our knowledge of solar emissions to lower frequencies and, therefore, to distances farther from the Sun.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Radio JOVE is a NASA partner citizen science project in which participants assemble and operate radio astronomy telescopes to gather and contribute data to support scientific studies.\u00a0 Radio JOVE collaborated with SunRISE Ground Radio Lab<\/a>,\u00a0 organized teams of high school students to observe the Sun, and recently published a paper<\/a> on these Type II solar radio bursts. Learn more and get involved<\/a>!\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

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A Type II solar radio burst on April 23rd, 2024, seen as the gently sloping yellow band drifting from 17:49 to 18:02 UTC in the 15-30 MHz radio frequency-time spectrogram.<\/div>\n
Credit: Tom Ashcraft, Lamy, NM<\/div>\n<\/figcaption><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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