Sporadic narrowband radio emissions from Uranus

Abstract

Among several different types of radio emissions discovered at Uranus during the Voyager 2 encounter in January 1986 is a very sporadic, bursty signal which consists of very narrow bands lying in the frequency range from about 3 to 10 kHz. The bursty emission was virtually undetectable from the dayside portion of the Voyager 2 trajectory but was observed out to beyond 300 R U during the outbound trajectory through the predawn sector. While the narrowband tones making up this emission are reminiscent of escaping continuum radiation observed near earth, Jupiter, and Saturn, the Uranian signals show large amplitude variations on time scales of 1 s, suggesting a very different type of generation mechanism.