Even a Blind Chicken Sometimes Finds a Grain of Corn—In My Case in Space

Abstract

Sometimes you need to take strategic risks even though you cannot know in advance where they will lead. I left my comfortable city life in Helsinki for a PhD position in space physics far away in the Arctic. The first part of the title of this paper is a compliment—originally a German proverb—a throwaway comment from a professor in connection with my decision. Good luck also helps. When I was appointed as a university lecturer, I did not have a clue about a new law in Sweden opening the possibility for promotion of suitably qualified lecturers to professorships. Taking risks have several times been to my advantage. Even my most important discovery, meteor head echoes, was the result of a risky idea for observing sporadic E‐layers. Instead, we got the first direct signals from the plasma coma around the very fast small grains entering from space into Earth's atmosphere monitored with a high‐power large‐aperture (HPLA) radar. In addition to my research activities, I have been interested in equal opportunities and gender issues. The many twists along my way have enriched my knowledge capital. At the top of my career, sitting in decision‐making bodies I finally learned and can now, afterward, reveal some secrets about how things work.

Meteor Radar for Investigation of the MLT Region: A Review

“…As we noted above, head echoes correspond to the detection of the ionization associated with the meteoroid itself. These are readily detected by High-Power Large-Aperture (HPLA) narrow-beam radars such as the EISCAT, MAARSY, and Jicamarca radars [73,74]. Ref.…”

“…Ref. [73] gives an entertaining discussion of the early observations of head echoes with the EISCAT radar. Head echoes are also clearly detected with some smaller radars (e.g., [25,27,75]), and the Adelaide ST narrow-beam radar results also demonstrated that a HPLA radar was not needed to do this.…”