Scientists discover the “Space Hurricane” above the Earth

Scientists have identified a “space hurricane” – a plasma mass that spins about 620 miles wide in the upper atmosphere above the magnetic North Pole.

The hurricane occurred in August 2014, but scientists did not know it had happened until more recently, when an international team of researchers observed the phenomenon while studying satellite observations from that time period. The discovery, the first of its kind, was published last month in the journal Nature Communications.

“Until now, it was uncertain that space plasma hurricanes existed, so it’s incredible to prove this with such a striking observation,” said Mike Lockwood, a space scientist at the University of Reading in the UK and co-author. of the study. in a statement.

The hurricane, which lasted about eight hours, would have been visible to the naked eye, but it is unlikely to have seen anyone because it occurred at such a high latitude, Lockwood told USA Today.

However, an illustration by the lead author of the Qing-He Zhang study at Shandong University in China shows what it might have looked like.

Larry Lyons, a professor of atmospheric and ocean sciences at the University of California, Los Angeles, explained to NBC News why the space turbulence in space was similar to the hurricanes we are most familiar with.

“You could see circulating plasma streams that were like the winds of a space hurricane,” he said. “These flows were strongest at the edge and decreased as you moved toward the center eye, before resuming on the other side, just like the flow of air from an ordinary hurricane.”

And while a hurricane on Earth was raining water, the space hurricane rained electrons into the atmosphere.

Changes in space weather can affect things like GPS signals and satellite communications. Researchers suspect that space hurricanes may be relatively frequent and have simply been undetected – so far.

Zhang told Vice that his team had already found other cases in the satellite data “that showed the characteristics of the space hurricane.” The published study describes only one, which he called “the best” in terms of how clear it was.