Scientists observe “space hurricane” hovering over Earth for first time

Scientists have long suspected that space conditions could create storm-like conditions above the Earth, but now they have picture evidence of what researchers call a plasma space hurricane.

The authors of a new paper published this week in Communications about nature they say they have the first observations of a swirling mass of net above the North Pole resembling a hurricane.

Using satellite imagery in 2014, teams at the University of Reading and the University of Shandong were able to create a 3D image of the 1,000-km-wide mass that rains electrons instead of water. Space storms above the Earth are created when the solar wind from the sun hits the Earth’s atmosphere.

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“Tropical storms are associated with huge amounts of energy, and these space hurricanes must be created by the unusually high and rapid transfer of solar wind energy and charged particles into the Earth’s upper atmosphere,” said Professor Mike Lockwood, a space scientist at the University. from Reading, said in a press release.

Lockwood and his team believe that these space hurricanes could be created beyond our solar system.

“Plasma and magnetic fields in the planet’s atmosphere exist throughout the universe, so the findings suggest that space hurricanes should be a widespread phenomenon,” Lockwood said.

What makes this discovery so special is that hurricanes have also been observed in the lower atmospheres of Mars, Jupiter and Saturn, but the existence of space hurricanes in the upper atmosphere of the planets has not been detected so far.

Hurricanes occur in the Earth’s oceans over warm bodies of water. When hot and humid air rises, it creates a low pressure area near the surface that sucks in the surrounding air, causing extremely strong winds and creating clouds that lead to the hurricane conditions we are used to.

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But in the upper atmosphere, the solar wind is responsible for creating space hurricanes.

The solar wind is a stream of charged particles emanating from the corona or atmosphere of the sun. Particles travel in all directions and interact with whatever they encounter, even the Earth. Fortunately, our planet has a shield, the magnetosphere. If it weren’t for this magnetic field, the Earth would have big problems. Instead, most of the solar wind is safely deflected and continues its journey through space. If there were no magnetic field, the harmful radiation carried by the solar wind would reach the surface, threatening life.

Some particles that are not deflected in space are guided to the north and south poles. These particles then interact with the gases in our atmosphere, causing those gases to move to a higher energy state, producing vibrant displays of light or Aurora, also known as northern or southern light.

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The auroral oval is the imprint in the atmosphere of the boundary between the extremely wide field lines of the polar cap and the more normal field lines at lower latitudes. When the solar wind is strong, this boundary approaches the equator.

The auroral oval usually clings close to the poles, but space hurricanes appear even closer to the pole.

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