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Share to Facebook Share to Twitter Share to Linkedin The aurora borealis, also known as Northern Lights, illuminates the night sky above the Kellostapuli ...
[+] Fell in Kolari, Finnish Lapland, early on January 15, 2022. (Photo by IRENE STACHON/Lehtikuva/AFP via Getty Images) Lehtikuva/AFP via Getty Images New research into May 10-12's solar “superstorm” and resulting U.S.
-wide displays of northern lights has revealed that the incident changed Earth's atmosphere in unprecedented ways. The scientists involved in a study of the G5-rated geomagnetic storm also made a prediction that will make skywatchers happy. “One reason we study geomagnetic storms is to try and build models to predict their impacts,” said Scott England, a co-author of one of two new papers published ( here and here ) in Geophysical Research Letters and associate professor at Virginia Tech.
“Based on the solar cycle, we’d expect the conditions we’re seeing this year to be around for about the next two years.” Upper Atmosphere During May's strongest geomagnetic storm in the last 20 years, the researchers used NASA's GOLD satellite to study changes in Earth's ionosphere. It's an upper layer of the atmosphere that is electrically charged by radiation from the sun.
It extends 50 to 400 miles overhead, where satellites and the International Space Station orbit. The northern lights are caused by energetic, charged particles hitting our upper atmosphere. “During solar geomagnetic storms, there’s a lot more of these energetic charged particles in the space around Earth, so we see a brightening of the northern lights and the region over which you can see them spreads out to include places like the lower 48 states that usually don’t see this display," said England.
MORE FOR YOU The Best Netflix Original Movie 0f 2024 Just Dropped With A Near-Perfect Rotten Tomatoes Score Today’s NYT Mini Crossword Clues And Answers For Sunday, September 8 UFC Fighter Gets Sketchy Win After Replay Reveals Illegal Tactics Hurricane-Sized Spirals What the researchers saw in the data from GOLD was that during the solar storm, the air moved away from the aurora to create vortices that moved air in a spiral larger than a hurricane. Low energy charged particles moved from around the equator toward the aurora, which is important because that could negatively impact GPS, satellites, and even the electrical grid. The cause appears to be changes in temperature and pressure.
“As the aurora intensifies, you see more lights, but along with that, there’s more energy entering the atmosphere, so it makes the atmosphere near the poles very hot, which starts to push air away from the poles and towards the equator,” said England. function loadConnatixScript(document) { if (!window.cnxel) { window.
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NASA recently studied it during April 8's total solar eclipse. An intense burst of radiation hits the ionosphere in the wake of a solar flare and a coronal mass ejection from the sun. It changes the composition and speed of the charged particles within Earth’s atmosphere.
The ionosphere is where signals from satellites, as well as long-wave radio, must travel through. During an intense display of northern lights, changes in the ionosphere can disrupt signals, making GPS signals inaccurate. Solar Activity The aurora generally forms an oval around the poles but can expand during intense geomagnetic storms.
Its normal southern boundary is at approximately 70 degrees north and south, but during severe conditions, it may extend to around 40 degrees north and south, or farther—as it did on May 10-12. An alignment between the magnetic poles of Earth and the solar wind means that the northern and southern lights can be at their most intense around the equinoxes, making September a critical month for aurora sightings across the globe. Solar activity is currently at a 23-year high due to the sun being close to its peak in the 11-year solar cycle, which results in varying magnetic activity.
That peak is destined to occur either this year or in 2025. Wishing you clear skies and wide eyes..
