Airborne monitoring of space weather and radioactivity

太阳发射高能粒子，其中一些粒子有能力-特别是在空间天气扰动期间-对自然和人工世界造成破坏。在自然界中，当这些粒子进入大气层时，它们会从空气中释放出电荷，人们认为这可能会对大气中的冰和水云产生影响。为了研究这种可能对气候产生微小影响的效应，需要测量在云形成的大气中相同水平上产生的电荷。一个具成本效益的方法是使用一个经特别装备以探测高能粒子的气象气球，因为世界各地的气象部门每天都会定期释放这种气球携带的测量系统。这个项目将测试一种新的低成本方法，利用气象气球进行高能粒子测量，这将允许在对气象气球网络中已经投资的费用几乎没有额外费用的情况下进行许多新的测量。为此需要一些电子系统，这些系统将专门开发，但要研究的方法是如此便宜，以至于对于不可回收的气象气球来说是一次性的。在电子电路被开发出来并在实验室中使用放射性进行测试之后，将进行一系列真实的试飞。通过选择不同纬度的两个地点，地球磁场对进入大气层的粒子能量变化的影响可以用来测试新的传感器。另一个方面是，也可以用同样的仪器简单地测量地表以上大气中的放射性：由于这些气球可以很容易地从不同的地方释放，这提供了应对核事故和恐怖主义的能力，在监测危险物质的扩散，而没有动力飞机的复杂性。在俄罗斯，一个重要的测量序列的高能大气颗粒物，自1957年以来，俄罗斯一直使用气球系统进行实验，但随着仪器的过时，俄罗斯的科学基金预计不会持续下去。通过调整气象部门每天使用的气球测量系统，高能粒子的测量将能够以低廉的价格继续进行，并提供监测自然放射性的机会，人们对自然放射性的认识不断提高。

The sun emits high energy particles, some of which have the capacity - particularly during episodes of disturbed Space Weather - to cause damage to the natural and artificial world. In the natural world, as the particles enter the atmosphere, they release electric charge from the air, which it is thought may have an effect on ice and water clouds in the atmosphere. To investigate this effect, which may have a small effect on climate, measurements of the charges generated at the same levels in the atmosphere where the clouds form are needed. A cost-effective way of doing this is to use a weather balloon which has been specially equipped to detect the high energy particles, as such balloon-carried measurement system are released by meteorological services around the world regularly every day.This project will test out a new low cost approach to harnessing weather balloons for the high energy particle measurements, which will allow many new measurements to be made at little additional expense to that already invested in the weather balloon network. Some electronic systems are required for this which will be developed specially, but the method to be studied is so cheap as to be disposable as needed for a non-recoverable weather balloon. After the electronic circuits have been developed and tested using radioactivity available in a laboratory, a series of real test flights will be made. By choosing two locations at different latitudes, the effect of the earth's magnetic field on changing the energy of the particles which get down into the atmosphere can be used to test the new sensor. An additional aspect is that radioactivity in the atmosphere above the surface can also be measured simply with the same instrumentation: as these balloons can be released easily from different places, this provides a capability to respond to nuclear accidents and terrorism, in monitoring the dispersal of the hazardous material without the complication of a powered aircraft.In Russia an important measurement sequence of high energy atmospheric particles has been made using balloon systems since 1957, but, as the instruments become obsolete, this is not expected to be sustained within Russian science funding. By adapting the balloon measurement systems already used by meteorological services everyday, measurements of the high energy particles will be able to be continued cheaply, as well as providing the opportunity to monitor natural radioactivity for which there is an ever-heightened awareness.