75. Jupiter as a radio source

Extract

Records obtained at a declination of about + 22° during the first quarter of 1955 with the 22·2 Mc./s. Mills Cross of the Carnegie Institution of Washington occasionally exhibited an interference-like event which was apparently a function of sidereal time. A plot of the right ascensions of beginning and end of each event (duration roughly fifteen minutes) against the date of occurrence revealed a smooth change of Right Ascension corresponding, initially, to a westward motion (Fig. 1). This pre-cluded correlation of the event with passage through the pencil beam of fixed objects like the galactic cluster NGC2420 and the planetary nebula NGC2392 which otherwise would have been candidates. The retrograde motion suggested a planet, and a canvass of the solar system uncovered only Jupiter and Uranus as possibilities. Of these, Jupiter exhibited the same position and the same change of position as did the event recorded, while Uranus was well out of the pencil beam much of the time. It was therefore concluded that the source of the radio emission was associated with Jupiter.