GEOGRAPHY ON THE PLANETS: GIFT OF REMOTE SENSING*

Extraterrestrial geography has become a reality, as we move from Earth's moon to the planets. A broad-scale regional physiography is being established on twenty planets and satellites through remote sensing techniques. Spacecraft images yield most of the information on Solar System landscapes. Topographic measurements are extracted by monoscopic image-processing, stereophotogrammetry, and radar analysis. Invisible parts of the spectrum furnish non-topographic data.     

Towards a free–free template for CMB foregrounds

A full-sky template map of the Galactic free–free foreground emission component is increasingly important for high-sensitivity cosmic microwave background (CMB) experiments. We use the recently published Hα data of both the northern and southern skies as the basis for such a template.
The first step is to correct the Hα maps for dust absorption using the 100-μm dust maps of Schlegel, Finkbeiner & Davis. We show that for a range of longitudes, the Galactic latitude distribution of absorption suggests that it is 33 per cent of the full extragalactic absorption. A reliable absorption-corrected Hα map can be produced for ∼95 per cent of the sky; the area for which a template cannot be recovered is the Galactic plane area  | b | < 5°, l = 260°–0°–160°  and some isolated dense dust clouds at intermediate latitudes.
The second step is to convert the dust-corrected Hα data into a predicted radio surface brightness. The free–free emission formula is revised to give an accurate expression (1 per cent) for the radio emission covering the frequency range 100 MHz–100 GHz and the electron temperature range 3000–20 000 K. The main uncertainty when applying this expression is the variation of electron temperature across the sky. The emission formula is verified in several extended H  ii regions using data in the range 408–2326 MHz.
A full-sky free–free template map is presented at 30 GHz; the scaling to other frequencies is given. The Haslam et al. all-sky 408-MHz map of the sky can be corrected for this free–free component, which amounts to a  ≈6  per cent correction at intermediate and high latitudes, to provide a pure synchrotron all-sky template. The implications for CMB experiments are discussed.     

几个活动区精细H_α结构的物理浅析

本文利用紫金山天文台赣榆站太阳精细结构望远镜拍得的高分辨率色球Ｈ_α照片，分析了三个典型活动区。文中利用并检验了七十年代获得的磁图推导法则，应用自己的数值模拟知识和Ｚｗａａｎ对ＡＦＳ系新浮流区概括的特征，参考七十和九十年代总结的有关耀斑和ＥｌｌｅｒｍａｎＢｏｍｂ的出现规律，逐日分析活动区发展，定出其内部的中性线位置，提出简单和复合中性线的区分，由ＡＦＳ系和亮谱斑同时出现判断新浮流区，从近离带图找等离子体不稳定点，从远离带图找普遍的磁场流场分布，由Ｈ_α结构的综合迹象推测磁场变化。总结出有关活动区Ｈ_α结构、磁场及等离子体性质关系的几点启示。     

Wolf-Rayet stars

Summary Recent literature on Population I Wolf-Rayet star research extending from the Milky Way to blue compact dwarf galaxies is reviewed, broken down into inventory, basic parameters and galactic distribution, atmospheres, binaries, intrinsic variability, mass loss, enrichment and evolution. Also the incidence of Wolf-Rayet stars with variable non-thermal radio emission, excess X-ray fluxes, and episodic/periodic IR excesses is reviewed. These phenomena appear to be associated with wind-wind interaction in wide long-period WR+OB binaries and with wind-compact object interaction in WR+c binaries, with orbit sizes of the order of magnitude of the WR radio photosphere sizes or larger.     

Numerical modelling of permafrost in bedrock in northern Fennoscandia during the Holocene

The occurrence of permafrost in bedrock in northern Fennoscandia and its dependence on past and presently ongoing climatic variations was investigated with one- (1D) and two-dimensional (2D) numerical models by solving the transient heat conduction equation with latent heat effects included. The study area is characterized by discontinuous permafrost occurrences such as palsa mires and local mountain permafrost. The ground temperature changes during the Holocene were constructed using climatic proxy data. This variation was used as a forcing function at the ground surface in the calculations. Several versions of the present ground temperature were applied, resulting in different subsurface freezing–thawing conditions in the past depending on the assumed porosity and geothermal conditions.Our results suggest that in high altitude areas with a cold climate (present mean annual ground temperature between 0°C and −3°C), there may have been considerable variations in permafrost thickness (ranging from 0 to 150 m), as well as periods of no permafrost at all. The higher is the porosity of bedrock filled with ice, the stronger is the retarding effect of permafrost against climatic variations.Two-dimensional models including topographic effects with altitude-dependent ground temperatures and slope orientation and inclination dependent solar radiation were applied to a case of mountain permafrost in Ylläs, western Finnish Lapland, where bedrock permafrost is known to occur in boreholes to a depth of about 60 m. Modelling suggests complicated changes in permafrost thickness with time as well as contrasting situations on southern and northern slopes of the mountain.Extrapolating the climatic warming of the last 200 years to the end of the next century when the anticipated increase in the annual average air temperature is expected to be about 2 K indicates that the permafrost occurrences in bedrock in northern Fennoscandia would be thawing rapidly in low-porosity formations. However, already a porosity of 5% filled with ice would retard the thawing considerably.     

Magnetic Field Strengths and Structures from Radio Observations of Solar Active Regions

Radio observations of some active regions (ARs) obtained with the Nobeyama radioheliograph at λ=1.76cm are used for estimating the magnetic field strength in the upper chromosphere, based on thermal bremsstrahlung. The results are compared with the magnetic field strength in the photosphere from observations with the Solar Magnetic Field Telescope (SMFT) at Huairou Solar Observing Station of Beijing Astronomical Observatory. The difference in the magnetic field strength between the two layers seems reasonable. The solar radio maps of active regions obtained with the Nobeyama radioheliograph, both in total intensity (I-map) and in circular polarizations (V-map), are compared with the optical magnetograms obtained with the SMFT. The comparison between the radio map in circular polarization and the longitudinal photospheric magnetogram of a plage region suggest that the radio map in circular polarization is a kind of magnetogram of the upper chromosphere. The comparison of the radio map in total intensity with the photospheric vector magnetogram of an AR shows that the radio map in total intensity gives indications of magnetic loops in the corona, thus we have a method of defining the coronal magnetic structure from the radio I-maps at λ=1.76 cm. Analysing the I-maps, we identified three components: (a) a compact bright source; (b) a narrow elongated structure connecting two main magnetic islands of opposite polarities (observed in both the optical and radio magnetograms); (c) a wide, diffuse, weak component that corresponds to a wide structure in the solar active region which shows in most cases an S or a reversed S contour, which is probably due to the differential rotation of the Sun. The last two components suggest coronal loops on different spatial scales above the neutral line of the longitudinal photospheric magnetic field.     

H II regions and radio visibility of quasar nuclei

The core (injector) and the jet (relativistic plasma outflow) of AGN objects are surrounded by an ionized medium, an H II region observed in emission lines. The synchrotron radiation from the core and the jet is observed through a thin screen that cocoons the structure under consideration. The screen transparency depends on wavelength and distance from the injector. We consider the objects 3C 345 and 1803+784 whose core emission at decimeter wavelengths is absorption by more than 25 dB. The visible bright compact component is the bright nearby portion of the jet that extends outside the dense part of the screen. We explore the possibility of measuring the screen transparency from absorption in Hα recombination lines with different quantum numbers at centimeter wavelengths.