Birdlings flat radars

The first of these radar systems AMOR (Advanced Meteor Orbit Radar) uses a 26.2 MHz radar to measure the orientation in the atmosphere and ionization decay of meteor trails caused by meteoroid grains entering the Earth's atmosphere at high speed and vapourising around 90 km altitude. The observations provide information about the source of the dust grains (e.g. whether they be from inside or outside the solar system) and also about atmospheric winds and diffusion processes in the atmosphere. AMOR has been supported by external grants -  the Marsden Fund and the European Space Operations Centre (ESOC). These grants enable us to study the geometry of the solar system dust cloud. This work enables us to probe the dynamics and evolutionary processes of the material that formed the solar system - and provides data for models that allow the risks to spacecraft from high speed meteoroid dust to be quantified. It is also important as the solar system meteoroid dust cloud forms the interplanetary background against which recently discovered interstellar dust (and as recovered by the Stardust spacecraft) is detected.

People
Prof. Jack Baggaley leads the group effort.
Adrian McDonald is the lecturer in charge of this radar system. Graeme Plank, our group technician, oversees the day to day running of Birdlings Flat and leads the construction-side of new and upgraded experiments, such as the ST radar.
Grahame Fraser and Bob Bennett, both maintain an active interest and participation in the running and upgrade of the Birdlings Flat facilities and the outcome of experiments run there.