HAARP research facility was not behind recent UK Northern Lights sightings

20 MAY 2024

WHAT WAS CLAIMED

The Northern Lights seen in many parts of the world recently were not a natural occurrence, but generated by the HAARP facility in Alaska.

OUR VERDICT

The Northern Lights were caused by a severe geomagnetic storm produced by the sun and were in no way caused by research carried out by HAARP.

Several posts circulating on Facebook and Threads claim that the aurora borealis, or Northern Lights, seen in many parts of the world between 10 and 12 May 2024, were actually created by a research facility in Alaska.

Although the High-frequency Active Auroral Research Program (HAARP) did run a “research campaign” from 8-10 May, this was in no way linked to the solar storm or high auroral activity globally.

Scientists at HAARP said they scheduled the May campaign on 16 March 2024, about a month and a half before the geomagnetic storm. In an FAQ posted online, they said: “The timing was purely coincidental; geomagnetic storms are unpredictable, with lead times before a solar event measured in minutes, not months.”

Some posts linking HAARP’s activity to the aurora borealis included notices HAARP published about the May campaign. HAARP said these are released with all campaigns to “promote citizen science collaborations” and highlighted that the May campaign “supported research proposals studying mechanisms for the detection of orbiting space debris” not creating aurora borealis. 

HAARP explained the Northern Lights seen that weekend were “produced solely by a severe geomagnetic storm that was produced by our sun” and not by its research.

HAARP also highlighted that coronal mass ejections, like the one associated with the recent geomagnetic storm, “typically release more than 10^24 Joules of energy”. By comparison, the high- frequency transmitter at HAARP is only a ~3 megawatt transmitter and “would take HAARP over 10 billion years to produce enough energy to affect this naturally occurring phenomenon”. 

What is the aurora borealis?

Jim Wild, Professor of Space Physics in the Physics Department at Lancaster University, explained to Full Fact that the Northern Lights are caused by the electromagnetic connection between the sun and earth. 

He explained that a stream of magnetised and electrically charged subatomic particles is constantly being carried from the sun by the ‘solar wind’ and when these particles leak into the earth’s magnetosphere—the region of space dominated by the earth’s magnetic field—some of this energy accelerates particles towards the earth. Energy is passed from the incoming particles to the earth’s oxygen and nitrogen particles, making them excited but unstable. The atoms de-excite by releasing photons of light, which is what creates the aurora.

Professor Wild explained: “Earth’s magnetic field normally funnels the sub-atomic particles from space into the polar regions, which is why the Northern Lights, or aurora borealis, are typically seen in the Arctic. During the months of the year when there are dark nights, it is not unusual to see some auroral activity every night at high latitude.”

Why were the Northern Lights visible in more places than usual?

Professor Wild told us that to see the Northern Lights at lower latitudes, the conditions that drive them need to be dialled up much higher. 

He said: “Typically, this happens when an explosion of solar material, known as a coronal mass ejection (CME), engulfs the Earth. This can trigger a geomagnetic storm that pushes the aurora equatorward. Typically, this happens a couple of times a year, but the sun has a natural 11-year cycle of activity and CMEs are more common around the maximum activity part of the cycle. 

“As it happens, that’s where we are now and over the last week, an active region on the solar surface has been firing one CME out after another.”

How is HAARP different?

HAARP can generate artificial aurora using high powered radio waves. 

“Instead of atmospheric gas atoms being excited by the impact of an electron raining down from space, they are excited when energy transfers from the HAARP radio wave to the atoms,” Professor Wild explained. “They then release light as they de-excite.”

He noted that the energy naturally poured into Earth’s atmosphere during a large geomagnetic storm that results in auroral displays like the recent one is estimated to be 5,000 gigawatts (5,000 billion watts). And although HAARP is a powerful radio transmitter, it can’t transmit nearly as much energy as that.

Of HAARP’s ability to generate artificial aurora, he said: “this produces very faint optical emissions, usually not bright enough to see. Also, the nature of its antennas means that the beam required to focus that energy into a small region of the sky can only be steered very slightly around the sky, and always above the transmitter site.”

HAARP has previously successfully run experiments that produce artificial “airglow”. But an FAQ on HAARP’s website stresses that the energy the facility generates is not strong enough to produce the optical display seen during a natural aurora.

Full Fact corroborated this with other scientists including Dr Ciaran Beggan at the British Geological Society, who explained “it is simply not feasible to generate that amount of energy on the ground and transmit it into [the] atmosphere in order to cover a large fraction of the northern hemisphere”.

Professor Don Pollacco, a physicist at the University of Warwick also noted “there is no way what we saw at the weekend was produced by HAARP—it is not capable enough,” while Dr Darren Baskill, lecturer in physics and astronomy at the University of Sussex, also highlighted the huge amount of energy required to generate the displays across the globe needs “a far greater amount of power that is available to the small HAARP project”. 

We’ve written about HAARP before and how it isn’t responsible for peculiar clouds. Other false claims that have previously spread about the facility include that it caused natural disasters after being “tested on” specific countries. People have been making similarly false claims for over a decade.

Image courtesy of Stein Egil Liland

This article is part of our work fact checking potentially false pictures, videos and stories on Facebook. You can read more about this—and find out how to report Facebook content—here. For the purposes of that scheme, we’ve rated this claim as false because HAARP did not cause the aurora borealis witnessed in many parts of the world in early May 2024.

• By Sian Bayley

US research station HAARP did not cause Turkey-Syria earthquake: experts


AFP Indonesia, AFP Romania
Wed, 8 March 2023 

Following the devastating earthquake in Turkey and Syria in February 2023, social media posts in various languages have shared videos they falsely claim show the disaster was "man-made" and triggered by the US-based High-frequency Active Auroral Research Program (HAARP) research facility. The false posts circulated in various languages. Scientists called the claim "ridiculous" and "science fiction", while one of the clips actually predates this year's Turkey-Syria quake.

A black-and-white video which appears to have been filmed from a surveillance camera was shared on Facebook here on February 9, 2023.

The 22-second clip shows flashes of light during what appears to be an earthquake.

The post's Indonesian-language caption starts with the hashtag "Man-made Disaster" and then goes on to say: "The HAARP technology exists and is real … If the Turkey quake was indeed caused by a HAARP attack, then Turkey and other Muslim countries have to unite to nuke the HAARP station centre in Gakona, Alaska, US."


Screenshot of the first false post, taken on March 4, 2023

Similar posts were shared here and here and also circulated in other languages such as English, Romanian, German and Greek.

The posts circulated days after a devastating earthquake struck southeastern Turkey and neighbouring Syria in the early morning hours of February 6, 2023. By the month's end, the death toll in both countries exceeded 50,000 people.

Another video -- 40 seconds long and showing flashing light amid rattling sounds during nighttime -- was posted on Facebook on February 7, 2023.

The post's lengthy Indonesian-language caption partly says: "Moments before the nearly 8 magnitude devastating earthquake in Turkey that left thousands dead, the HAARP weapon appeared with a strange flash of lightning. HAARP has the ability to trigger floods, hurricanes, earthquakes, thunderstorms etc."

Screenshot of the second false post, taken on March 4, 2023

Another Indonesian-based Facebook user also shared the video alongside a similar claim here.

Similar posts featuring the clip circulated in other languages such as English, French, Spanish, Dutch, Romanian, Hungarian and Czech.

AFP spoke to multiple experts in astronomy, geophysics and earth sciences who all dismissed the claims.

They said HAARP -- a research centre run by the US Air Force and US Navy before being handed over in 2015 to the University of Alaska Fairbanks -- does not have the capacity to trigger earthquakes.
'Science fiction'

HAARP is focused on studying the properties and behaviour of the ionosphere, which NASA explains here is the top layer of the earth's atmosphere that meets the beginning of space.

Jeffrey Hughes, professor of astronomy at Boston University, told AFP that HAARP's radio waves heat the ionosphere over a limited region of around 100 km. "There is no way this could be used to create an effect halfway round the earth in the solid earth. I'm sorry but this is just silly," he said.

Toshi Nishimura, a geophysicist and research associate professor at Boston University's College of Engineering, said: "Currently there is no technology to launch radio waves from the ground and hit a city in another continent precisely."

He added: "Artificial radio waves can disturb the upper atmosphere locally, but it is comparable to disturbance caused by the Sun. I'm not aware of scientific evidence that the artificial waves can create much stronger disturbances and impact local seismic conditions."

Susan Hough, a geophysicist with the US Geological Survey (USGS), dismissed the claims as "science fiction". "There is no plausible mechanism whereby an earthquake could be triggered with such a device or weapon," she told AFP.

"This is so crazy it's like asking if the earthquake was caused by Bugs Bunny digging for carrots," David Keith, professor of applied physics at the Harvard School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, told AFP when asked about these claims. "There is simply no known mechanism for anything remotely like HAARP to have any impact on earthquakes."

Michael Lockwood, professor of space environment physics at the University of Reading in England, who has worked with similar scientific instruments in other locations, was unequivocal that "HAARP is NOT a weapon in any shape or form and never has been and it cannot be used as a weapon".

"The idea that HAARP, situated just north of Gakona, Alaska could generate seismic activity anywhere, let alone in Turkey and Syria is, frankly, truly ridiculous," he added.

On its FAQ page, HAARP says: "The goal of the research at HAARP is to conduct fundamental study of the physical processes at work in the very highest portions of our atmosphere."

When asked by AFP about the latest claims that it was behind the February 2023 earthquake, HAARP's programme manager Jessica Matthews said this was not possible.

"The recent earthquake and tragic loss of life in Turkey highlight the destruction that natural disasters can cause. The research equipment at the HAARP site cannot create or amplify natural disasters," she told AFP.

Misused videos

The videos in the posts had also been shared with false context.

A keyword search found the first video was posted by Turkish broadcaster Haber Global on November 23, 2022 -- more than two months before the Turkey-Syria quake.

According to the Haber Global news report, the footage shows lightning during an earthquake in the Duzce region in northwestern Turkey on the same day.

In the clip, the news presenter says the "beam of light" phenomenon has been also observed in other quakes, when there is movement in the Earth's fault lines.

Other local news media here and here also reported on the flashes of light in the sky during the November 2022 quake in Turkey. The 6.1-magnitude quake injured at least 50 people, AFP reported at that time.

Using video verification tool InVID-WeVerify, AFP ran a Yandex reverse image search of the keyframes from the second video, and found the video was published by Turkish newspaper Yeni Safak on its website and Facebook page on February 6, 2023.

Accroding to Yeni Safak, a local resident took the video during the earthquake in Hatay province, in southern Turkey.

Other Turkish media, such as here and here, also reported the clip was taken during the earthquake in Hatay province, but some others, like here, said it was recorded in Pazarcik, a district in Turkey's southern Kahramanmaras province. None of the reports mentioned HAARP.

Frightening moment powerful earthquake rattles buildings in southern Türkiye | Amateur footage captured by a local in Türkiye's southern Hatay province shows the moment a powerful earthquake rattled buildings after a 7.4 magnitude... | By Yeni Şafak | Facebook

Hatay and Kahramanmaras were the two hardest hit provinces by the February 2023 quake, AFP reported.

Earthquake lights

Experts told AFP that such lights are not a proof that HAARP triggered an earthquake. The phenomenon is common during quakes, though there is some disagreement about their provenance.

Phenomena such as sheet lightning, balls of light, streamers, and steady glow which are reported in association with earthquakes are called earthquake lights, the USGS explains here.

Geophysicists differ on the extent to which they think that individual reports of unusual lighting near the time and epicenter of an earthquake actually represent earthquake lights, the USGS says.

"Most experts agree that earthquake lights do occur: flashes of light seen during strong earthquakes. Sometimes lights are generated by transformer explosions, but there is evidence for lights from the earth itself," Hough of USGS explained to AFP.

"There are some ideas why they occur, but I don't believe there's a widely accepted theory to explain them, in part because they are such an ephemeral observation, they are difficult to even document," she added.

AFP showed the footage that was shared by the Turkish media to experts as well.

John Vidale, professor of earth sciences at the University of Southern California, said that "videos such as this usually come from electric transformers shorting out during the strong shaking."

Hughes from Boston University, concurred. "They look to me, at least some of them, like the sorts of flashes you get when electric power systems short out, which I'm sure happened during the destruction of the earthquake," he said.

Turkey, which sits on the East Anatolian and the North Anatolian fault lines, is in one of the world's most active earthquake zones.

"By all indicates the Turkey earthquake, while large, is in keeping with expectations for large earthquakes on major strike-slip fault systems," Hough said.

AFP has previously debunked misinformation about HAARP, such as those that say it was responsible for the unusual orange cloud that appeared in Turkey weeks before the earthquake, or that it could control the weather or emit 5G radiation containing the coronavirus.

 

HAARP artificial airglow may be widely visible in Alaska

Business Announcement

UNIVERSITY OF ALASKA FAIRBANKS

Alaskans and visitors may be able to see an artificial airglow in the sky created by the High-frequency Active Auroral Research Program during a four-day research campaign that starts Saturday.

Scientists from the University of Alaska Fairbanks, Cornell University, University of Colorado Denver, University of Florida and Georgia Institute of Technology will conduct a variety of experiments at the UAF-operated research site.

The experiments will focus on the ionosphere, the region of the atmosphere between about 30 and 350 miles above the Earth’s surface. 

Scientists will investigate ionosphere mechanisms that cause optical emissions. They’ll also try to understand whether certain plasma waves — gas so hot that electrons get knocked off atoms — amplify other very low frequency waves. And they’ll investigate how satellites can use plasma waves in the ionosphere for collision detection and avoidance.

Each day, the airglow could be visible up to 300 hundred miles from the HAARP facility in Gakona. The site lies about 200 miles northeast of Anchorage and 230 miles southeast of Fairbanks, or about 300 to 350 kilometers.

HAARP creates airglow by exciting electrons in Earth’s ionosphere, similar to how solar energy creates natural aurora, with on and off pulses of high-frequency radio transmissions. HAARP’s Ionospheric Research Instrument, a phased array of 180 high-frequency antennas spread across 33 acres, can radiate 3.6 megawatts into the upper atmosphere and ionosphere. 

The airglow, if visible, will appear as a faint red or possibly green patch. Because of the way the human eye operates, the airglow might be easier to see when looking just to the side.

HAARP will create an airglow at a specific point in the sky. The angle of visibility for anyone wanting to look for it will depend on a person’s distance from HAARP.

HAARP transmission frequencies will vary but will occur between 2.8 and 10 megahertz. Actual transmit days and times are highly variable based on real-time ionospheric and/or geomagnetic conditions. 

Additional information about the research campaign will be available on the HAARP website.

The National Science Foundation in 2021 awarded the UAF Geophysical Institute a five-year, $9.3 million grant to establish the Subauroral Geophysical Observatory at HAARP. The observatory explores Earth’s upper atmosphere and geospace environment.

The grant has supported several HAARP research campaigns, including this one. It also helped fund the return to HAARP of the Polar Aeronomy and Radio Science Summer School, which hosted more than 50 researchers in August.

The Air Force originally developed and owned HAARP but transferred the research instruments to UAF in August 2015. UAF operates the site under an agreement with the Air Force.

Pilots flying in the Gulkana area are asked to check with the Federal Aviation Administration for temporary flight restriction details.

THE THING OF CONSPIRACY NIGHTMARES

Wild Experiments Are Trying to Bounce Radio Signals Off the Moon and Jupiter

Passant Rabie
Mon, October 31, 2022 

The facility’s antenna array includes 180 antennas spread across 33 acres.

An antenna field in Alaska that’s spawned no shortage of conspiracy theories has been carrying out a series of experiments that include sending radio signals to the Moon and Jupiter and waiting for pings back.

The High Frequency Active Auroral Research Program (HAARP) kicked off a 10-day science campaign that ran through October 28. On the agenda were 13 experiments that are pushing the limits of what the facility can do. “The October research campaign is our largest and most diverse to date, with researchers and citizen scientists collaborating from across the globe,” Jessica Matthews, HAARP’s program manager, said in a release.

HAARP is made up of 180 high-frequency antennas, each standing at 72 feet tall, stretched across 33 acres near Gakona, Alaska. The research facility transmits radio beams toward Earth’s ionosphere, the ionized part of the atmosphere that’s located about 50 to 400 miles (80 to 600 kilometers) above Earth’s surface. The ionosphere is filled with electrically charged particles, a result of being blasted by solar energy. HAARP sends radio signals to the ionosphere and waits to see how they return, in an effort to measure the disturbances caused by the Sun, among other things.

In one recent experiment, known as the “Moon Bounce,” a group of researchers from NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Owens Valley Radio Observatory, and the University of New Mexico transmitted a signal from the HAARP antennas in Alaska to the Moon and then waited to receive a reflected signal back at the observatory sites in California and New Mexico.

The purpose of the experiment is to study how the three facilities in Alaska, California, and New Mexico can work together for the future observations of near-Earth asteroids. The facility may be able to transmit a signal to an asteroid flying by Earth and receive a signal back that will hint at the space rock’s composition.

Another experiment sent a radio beam to Jupiter, currently located about 374 million miles (600 million kilometers) from Earth. The hope is that the beam would reflect off Jupiter’s ionosphere and then be received at the New Mexico site.

The Jupiter experiment is run by the John Hopkins Applied Physics Labarotory and aims to provide a new way of observing the ionospheres of other planets. Considering how far Jupiter is from Earth, this experiment is a true test of HAARP’s signal-transmitting capabilities.

Another experiment is more on the artsy side. “Ghosts in the Air Glow” beamed video, images, spoken word, and sound art to the ionosphere and waited for the signal to bounce back to test the transitional boundary of the atmosphere.

HAARP was originally a project of the U.S. Air Force to study solar flares, which can disrupt Earth’s communications and electric grid. But in 2015, the Air Force decided it was no longer interested in maintaining HAARP, and ownership transferred to the University of Alaska. While it was under the purview of the Air Force, HAARP inspired some wild conspiracy theories, including that its antennas were being used to alter the weather, create deadly hurricanes, and even control minds.

More from Gizmodo

 

Posts falsely blame HAARP research project for Hurricane Helene

An aerial view of damaged houses are seen after Hurricane Helene made landfall in Horseshoe Beach, Florida on September 28, 2024 ( AFP / CHANDAN KHANNA)

• Published on October 1, 2024  
• 
  
• By Natalie WADE, AFP USA

Copyright © AFP 2017-2024. Any commercial use of this content requires a subscription. Click here to find out more.

As a massive hurricane thrashed the southeastern United States in late September 2024, social media posts claimed Democrats used the High-frequency Active Auroral Research Program (HAARP) to create the storm to prevent Republicans from voting in the upcoming presidential election. This is false; scientists have repeatedly refuted the notion that the atmospheric research initiative can manipulate the weather. 

"They are using HAARP to ensure that HURRICANE HELENE devastates the largest Republican stronghold area in Florida. This hurricane will destroy homes, displace thousands and ensure much less participation in the presidential election in November," says a September 26, 2024 Facebook post.

Screenshot of a Facebook post taken September 30, 2024

Screenshots of the claim spread elsewhere on social media. The X user who originally aired the allegation admitted September 28 that it was a "troll post," only to share a similar claim two days later.

Helene made landfall September 26 on the Florida Panhandle as a massive Category 4 hurricane, stranding residents, destroying homes and knocking out power for millions of people. The National Weather Service warned of "catastrophic and potentially life-threatening" flooding as the storm headed inland, and the death toll climbed to at least 130 on October 1.

The disaster electrified an already tense election campaign, just five weeks from the final match-up between former president Donald Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris. Trump quickly accused the Biden administration of inaction, alleging political bias.

"He's lying," President Joe Biden responded September 30, citing the White House's ongoing response to the devastating storm (archived here).

HAARP uses the world's most powerful high-frequency transmitter to study the physical processes at work in the highest regions of the atmosphere. It has long been the subject of conspiracy theories -- including claims that it can manipulate the weather.

The latest allegations are similarly baseless.

"The tragic loss of life and widespread devastation caused by Hurricane Helene serve as a solemn reminder of the immense power of natural disasters. The research equipment at the HAARP facility is not capable of generating or amplifying such events," HAARP Director Jessica Matthews (archived here) said in an October 1 email.

Howard Diamond, director of the Atmospheric Sciences and Modeling Division at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Air Resources Laboratory (archived here), concurred.

"HAARP had absolutely no connection to the formation of Hurricane Helene, the formation of any other hurricane, or the genesis of any other natural weather event for that matter," he said in a September 30 email.

The University of Alaska Fairbanks has operated the program since 2015, when it was transferred from the US Air Force (archived here).

"Radio waves in the frequency ranges that HAARP transmits are not absorbed in either the troposphere or the stratosphere -- the two levels of the atmosphere that produce Earth's weather," the initiative says on its FAQ page (archived here).

"Since there is no interaction, there is no way to control the weather."

How hurricanes form

Global weather patterns are responsible for large-scale storms such as blizzards and hurricanes, which require specific atmospheric conditions to form.

"The genesis of Hurricane Helene, as is the case for any hurricane, formed on its own given the right conditions of sea surface temperature and upper atmospheric winds," Diamond said.

Image

Graphic explaining the formation of hurricanes

(AFP / Cléa PÉCULIER, Sophie RAMIS)

Ella Gilbert, a meteorologist at the British Antarctic Survey (archived here), previously told AFP that "heatwaves, droughts, storms and floods are all caused by a variety of different conditions in the atmosphere and are often the result of the random combination of weather events."

She said it "makes no sense" to raise the idea that technology is bringing about such extreme events.

Although the 2024 Atlantic hurricane season has been less busy than predicted (archived here), scientists say climate change and warmer-than-average ocean temperatures have likely played a role in the rapid intensification of storms.

Florida voters affected by Helene

The Florida Department of State told AFP it is working with county election officials to address damage to infrastructure and polling places, poll worker safety and availability, and mail-in ballots.

"The Florida Department of State will continue to follow up with supervisors throughout this time as their needs evolve," an agency spokesperson said in a September 30 email.

The state has taken steps to ensure ballot access after past storms.

Florida Governor Ron DeSantis issued an emergency executive order following Hurricane Ian to change election procedures and expand voting options for those displaced or otherwise affected ahead of the 2022 midterms (archived here, here and here).

More of AFP's reporting on misinformation about the 2024 US election is available here.

HAARP to bounce signal off asteroid in NASA experiment

Business Announcement

UNIVERSITY OF ALASKA FAIRBANKS

An experiment to bounce a radio signal off an asteroid on Dec. 27 will serve as a test for probing a larger asteroid that in 2029 will pass closer to Earth than the many geostationary satellites that orbit our planet.

The High-frequency Active Auroral Research Program research site in Gakona will transmit radio signals to asteroid 2010 XC15, which could be about 500 feet across. The University of New Mexico Long Wavelength Array near Socorro, New Mexico, and the Owens Valley Radio Observatory Long Wavelength Array near Bishop, California, will receive the signal.

This will be the first use of HAARP to probe an asteroid.

“What’s new and what we are trying to do is probe asteroid interiors with long wavelength radars and radio telescopes from the ground,” said Mark Haynes, lead investigator on the project and a radar systems engineer at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California. “Longer wavelengths can penetrate the interior of an object much better than the radio wavelengths used for communication.”

Knowing more about an asteroid’s interior, especially of an asteroid large enough to cause major damage on Earth, is important for determining how to defend against it.

“If you know the distribution of mass, you can make an impactor more effective, because you’ll know where to hit the asteroid a little better,” Haynes said.

Many programs exist to quickly detect asteroids, determine their orbit and shape and image their surface, either with optical telescopes or the planetary radar of the Deep Space Network, NASA’s network of large and highly senstive radio antennas in California, Spain and Australia.

Those radar-imaging programs use signals of short wavelengths, which bounce off the surface and provide high-quality external images but don’t penetrate an object.

HAARP will transmit a continually chirping signal to asteroid 2010 XC15 at slightly above and below 9.6 megahertz (9.6 million times per second). The chirp will repeat at two-second intervals. Distance will be a challenge, Haynes said, because the asteroid will be twice as far from Earth as the moon is.

The University of Alaska Fairbanks operates HAARP under an agreement with the Air Force, which developed and owned HAARP but transferred the research instruments to UAF in August 2015. 

The test on 2010 XC15 is yet another step toward the globally anticipated 2029 encounter with asteroid Apophis. It follows tests in January and October in which the moon was the target of a HAARP signal bounce.

Apophis was discovered in 2004 and will make its closest approach to Earth on April 13, 2029, when it comes within 20,000 miles. Geostationary satellites orbit Earth at about 23,000 miles. The asteroid, which NASA estimated to be about 1,100 feet across, was initially thought to pose a risk to Earth in 2068, but its orbit has since been better projected by researchers.

The test on 2010 XC15 and the 2029 Apophis encounter are of general interest to scientists who study near-Earth objects. But planetary defense is also a key research driver.

“The more time there is before a potential impact, the more options there are to try to deflect it,” Haynes said.

NASA says an automobile-sized asteroid hits Earth’s atmosphere about once a year, creating a fireball and burning up before reaching the surface.

About every 2,000 years a meteoroid the size of a football field hits Earth. Those can cause a lot of damage. And as for wiping out civilization, NASA says an object large enough to do that strikes the planet once every few million years.

NASA first successfully redirected an asteroid on Sept. 26, when its Double Asteroid Redirection Test mission, or DART, collided with Dimorphos. That asteroid is an orbiting moonlet of the larger Didymos asteroid.

The DART collision altered the moonlet’s orbit time by 32 minutes.

The Dec. 27 test could reveal great potential for the use of asteroid sensing by long wavelength radio signals. Approximately 80 known near-Earth asteroids passed between the moon and Earth in 2019, most of them small and discovered near closest approach.

“If we can get the ground-based systems up and running, then that will give us a lot of chances to try to do interior sensing of these objects,” Haynes said.

The National Science Foundation is funding the work through its award to the Geophysical Institute for establishing the Subauroral Geophysical Observatory for Space Physics and Radio Science in Gakona

“HAARP is excited to partner with NASA and JPL to advance our knowledge of near-Earth objects,” said Jessica Matthews, HAARP’s program manager.

HEY CONSPARITORIALISTS

NASA and HAARP conclude asteroid experiment

Business Announcement

UNIVERSITY OF ALASKA FAIRBANKS

A powerful transmitter in remote Alaska sent long wavelength radio signals into space Tuesday with the purpose of bouncing them off an asteroid to learn about its interior.

The asteroid, 2010 XC15, is estimated to be about 500 feet across and is passing by Earth at two lunar distances, which is twice the distance between the Earth and the moon.

Results of Tuesday’s experiment at the High-frequency Active Auroral Research Program research facility at Gakona could aid efforts to defend Earth from larger asteroids that could cause significant damage.

“We will be analyzing the data over the next few weeks and hope to publish the results in the coming months,” said Mark Haynes, lead investigator on the project and a radar systems engineer at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California. “This experiment was the first time an asteroid observation was attempted at such low frequencies.

“This shows the value of HAARP as a potential future research tool for the study of near-Earth objects,” he said.

Several programs exist to quickly detect asteroids, determine their orbit and shape and image their surface, either with optical telescopes or the planetary radar of the Deep Space Network, NASA’s network of large and highly senstive radio antennas in California, Spain and Australia.

Those radar-imaging programs don’t provide information about an asteroid’s interior, however. They use signals of short wavelengths, which bounce off the surface and provide high-quality external images but don’t penetrate an object. 

Long wavelength radio signals can reveal the interior of objects. 

HAARP, using three powerful generators, began transmitting chirping signals of long wavelength at 2 a.m. Tuesday and continued sending them uninterrupted until the scheduled end of the 12-hour experiment.

The University of New Mexico Long Wavelength Array near Socorro, New Mexico, and the Owens Valley Radio Observatory Long Wavelength Array near Bishop, California, are also involved in the experiment.

Data analysis is expected to take several weeks.

The Tuesday experiment also served as a test for probing an asteroid larger than 2010 XC15.

Asteroid Apophis, discovered in 2004, will make its closest approach to Earth on April 13, 2029. It will come within about 20,000 miles of Earth, closer than the many geostationary satellites orbiting the planet.

Apophis, which NASA estimated to be about 1,100 feet across, was initially thought to pose a risk to Earth in 2068, but its orbit has since been better projected by researchers and is now not a risk to the planet for at least a century.

Tuesday’s test follows tests in January and October in which scientists bounced long-wavelength signals off the moon in preparation for this week’s experiment. 

Haynes said understanding the makeup of an asteroid’s interior, especially of an asteroid large enough to cause major damage on Earth, can increase the chances of an effective defense. Knowing the distribution of mass within a dangerous asteroid could help scientists target devices designed to deflect an asteroid away from Earth.

Amateur scientists from around the world reported receiving the outgoing transmission, said Jessica Matthews, HAARP’s program manager. The reports will help infer the conditions of the ionosphere during the experiment.

“Our collaboration with JPL is not only an opportunity to do great science but also involves the global community of citizen scientists,” she said. “So far we have received over 300 reception reports from the amateur radio and radio astronomy communities from six continents who confirmed the HAARP transmission.” 

The University of Alaska Fairbanks operates HAARP under an agreement with the Air Force, which developed and owned HAARP but transferred the research instruments to UAF in August 2015. 

---

CONTACTS:

• Ian J. O’Neill, NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory, ian.j.oneill@jpl.nasa.gov

• Rod Boyce, University of Alaska Fairbanks Geophysical Institute, 907-474-7185, rcboyce@alaska.edu