Transcontinental baselines and the rotation of the Earth measured by radio interferometry.

Nine separate very-long-baseline interferometry (VLBI) experiments, carried out in 1972 and 1973 with radio telescopes 3900 kilometers apart, yielded values for the baseline length with a root-mean-square deviation about the mean of less than 20 centitneters. The corresponding fractional spread is about five parts in 10(8). Changes in universal time and in polar motion were also detertnined accurately from these data; the root-mean-square scatter of these results with respect to those based on optical methods were 2.9 milliseconds and 1.3 meters, respectively. Solid-earth tides were apparently detected, but no useful estimate of their amplituide was extracted.

Precision Geodesy via Radio Interferometry.

Very-long-baseline interferometry experiments, involving observations of extragalactic radio sources, were performed in 1969 to determine the vector separations between antenna sites in Massachusetts and West Virginia. The 845.130-kilometer baseline was estimated from two separate experiments. The results agreed with each other to within 2 meters in all three components and with a special geodetic survey to within 2 meters in length; the differences in baseline direction as determined by the survey and by interferometry corresponded to discrepancies of about 5 meters. The experiments also yielded positions for nine extragalactic radio sources, most to within 1 arc second, and allowed the hydrogen maser clocks at the two sites to be synchronized a posteriori with an uncertainty of only a few nanoseconds.

Interferometric observations of an artificial satellite.

Very-long-baseline interferometric observations of radio signals from the TACSAT synchronous satellite, even though extending over only 7 hours, have enabled an excellent orbit to be deduced. Precision in differenced delay and delay-rate measurements reached 0.15 nanosecond ( approximately 5 centimeters in equivalent differenced distance) and 0.05 picosecond per second ( approximately 0.002 centimeter per second in equivalent differenced velocity), respectively. The results from this initial three-station experiment demonstrate the feasibility of using the method for accurate satellite tracking and for geodesy. Comparisons are made with other techniques.

Quasars: Millisecond-of-Arc Structure Revealed by Very-Long-Baseline Interferometry.

Observations with the Goldstone-Haystack radio interferometer of the quasars 3C 279 and 3C 273 have disclosed the presence of fine structure in their radio emissions. Although the interpretation is not unique, the fringe-amplitude data for quasar 3C 279 are quite consistent with emissions from two points, each contributing equally to the correlated flux. The separation of the two points is estimated to be (1.55 +/- 0.05) x 10(-3) arc second, or about 20 light years at the distance of 3 x 10(9) light years inferred from optical red-shift data. The formal uncertainty in the right-ascension component of the separation is about 6 x 10(-6) arc second; differential proper motion in this direction at half the speed of light could be discerned within a year. The fringe-amplitude data of quasar 3C 273 allow similar, but less definitive, interpretations.

Quasars revisited: rapid time variations observed via very-long-baseline interferometry.

Recent Goldstone-Haystack radio interferometric observations of the quasars 3C 279 and 3C 273 reveal rapid variations in their fine structure. Most notably, the data for 3C 279, interpreted in terms of a symmetric double-source model and the accepted red-shift distance, indicate differential proper motion corresponding to an apparent speed about ten times that of light. A number of possible mechanisms that might give rise to such an apparent speed are considered; although several may be plausible, no definitive choice can be made on the basis of present evidence. More interferometric observations of quasars are clearly needed to clarify their structure and internal kinematics.

Detection of a Compact Radio Source near the Center of a Gravitational Lens: Quasar Image or Galactic Core?

By use of a new, very sensitive interferometric system, a faint, compact radio source has been detected near the center of the galaxy that acts as the main part of a gravitational lens. This lens forms two previously discovered images of the quasar Q09S7+561, which lies in the direction of the constellation Ursa Major. The newly detected source has a core smaller than 0.002 arc second in diameter with a flux density of 0.6 +/- 0.1 millijansky at the 13-centimeter wavelength of the radio observations. This source could be the predicted third image of the transparent gravitational lens, the central core of the galaxy, or some combination of the two. It is not yet possible to choose reliably between these alternatives.

Very long baseline interferometric observations made with an orbiting radio telescope.

An orbiting spacecraft and ground observatories have been used to obtain interferometric observations of cosmic radio sources. The Tracking and Data Relay Satellite System (TDRSS) was used as the orbiting observatory in conjunction with two 64- meter radio telescopes at ground observatories, one in Australia and one in Japan. The quasars 1730-130 (NRAO 530), 1510-089, and 1741-038 were observed at a frequency of 2.3 gigahertz, and a maximum projected baseline of 1.4 earth diameters was achieved. All quasar observations for which valid data were acquired resulted in detected fringes. Many of the techniques proposed for a dedicated very long baseline interferometry observatory in space were used successfully in this experiment.

Very-Long-Baseline Radio Interferometry: The Mark III System for Geodesy, Astrometry, and Aperture Synthesis.

The Mark III very-long-baseline interferometry (VLBI) system allows recording and later processing of up to 112 megabits per second from each radio telescope of an interferometer array. For astrometric and geodetic measurements, signals from two radio-frequency bands (2.2 to 2.3 and 8.2 to 8.6 gigahertz) are sampled and recorded simultaneously at all antenna sites. From these dual-band recordings the relative group delays of signals arriving at each pair of sites can be corrected for the contributions due to the ionosphere. For many radio sources for which the signals are sufficiently intense, these group delays can be determined with uncertainties under 50 picoseconds. Relative positions of widely separated antennas and celestial coordinates of radio sources have been determined from such measurements with 1 standard deviation uncertainties of about 5 centimeters and 3 milliseconds of arc, respectively. Sample results are given for the lengths of baselines between three antennas in the United States and three in Europe as well as for the arc lengths between the positions of six extragalactic radio sources. There is no significant evidence of change in any of these quantities. For mapping the brightness distribution of such compact radio sources, signals of a given polarization, or of pairs of orthogonal polarizations, can be recorded in up to 28 contiguous bands each nearly 2 megahertz wide. The ability to record large bandwidths and to link together many large radio telescopes allows detection and study of compact sources with flux densities under 1 millijansky.

Low Altitude Solar Magnetic Reconnection, Type III Solar Radio Bursts, and X-ray Emissions.

Type III solar radio bursts are the Sun's most intense and frequent nonthermal radio emissions. They involve two critical problems in astrophysics, plasma physics, and space physics: how collective processes produce nonthermal radiation and how magnetic reconnection occurs and changes magnetic energy into kinetic energy. Here magnetic reconnection events are identified definitively in Solar Dynamics Observatory UV-EUV data, with strong upward and downward pairs of jets, current sheets, and cusp-like geometries on top of time-varying magnetic loops, and strong outflows along pairs of open magnetic field lines. Type III bursts imaged by the Murchison Widefield Array and detected by the Learmonth radiospectrograph and STEREO B spacecraft are demonstrated to be in very good temporal and spatial coincidence with specific reconnection events and with bursts of X-rays detected by the RHESSI spacecraft. The reconnection sites are low, near heights of 5-10 Mm. These images and event timings provide the long-desired direct evidence that semi-relativistic electrons energized in magnetic reconnection regions produce type III radio bursts. Not all the observed reconnection events produce X-ray events or coronal or interplanetary type III bursts; thus different special conditions exist for electrons leaving reconnection regions to produce observable radio, EUV, UV, and X-ray bursts.