From terrestrial weather to space weather through the history of scintillation

TL;DR

This paper traces the historical development of scintillation observations from ancient times to modern space weather prediction, highlighting its evolution as a ground-based tool for understanding terrestrial and space environments.

Contribution

It provides a comprehensive historical survey of scintillation research, connecting ancient observations to modern applications in space weather forecasting.

Findings

Long history of scintillation observations across cultures

Development of scintillation as a tool for space weather prediction

Connection between terrestrial and space weather studies

Abstract

Recent observations of interplanetary scintillation (IPS) at radio frequencies have proved to be a powerful tool for probing the solar environment from the ground. But how far back does this tradition really extend? Our survey of the literature to date has revealed a long history of scintillating observations, beginning with the oral traditions of Indigenous peoples from around the globe, encompassing the works of the Ancient Greeks and Renaissance scholars, and continuing right through into modern optics, astronomy and space science. We outline here the major steps that humanity has taken along this journey, using scintillation as a tool for predicting first terrestrial, and then space weather without ever having to leave the ground.