A first “space hurricane” was seen swirling above the Earth, scientists said.
The 600-mile plasma mass occurred several hundred miles above the North Pole, according to a study 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 and co-author of the study , in a statement.
The show was captured by satellites in August 2014, but only recently discovered during research conducted by scientists at Shandong University in China.
The space hurricane “rained” electrons instead of water, had several spiral arms and lasted eight hours before gradually unleashing, the researchers said.
“Tropical storms are associated with huge amounts of energy, and these space hurricanes must be created by the unusually large and rapid transfer of solar wind energy and charged particles into the Earth’s upper atmosphere,” Lockwood said.
The discovery of the “space hurricane” in a period of low geometric activity suggests that they may be a common phenomenon, Lockwood said.
“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,” he said.