ionosphere tagged posts

Scientists Discover Phenomenon Impacting Earth’s Radiation Belts

Scientists discover phenomenon impacting Earth's radiation belts
This graphic shows a cutaway model of Earth’s radiation belts with the two Van Allen Probes satellites flying through them. Credit: NASA illustration

Two University of Alaska Fairbanks scientists have discovered a new type of “whistler,” an electromagnetic wave that carries a substantial amount of lightning energy to the Earth’s magnetosphere.

The research is published today in Science Advances.

Vikas Sonwalkar, a professor emeritus, and Amani Reddy, an assistant professor, discovered the new type of wave. The wave carries lightning energy, which enters the ionosphere at low latitudes, to the magnetosphere. The energy is reflected upward by the ionosphere’s lower boundary, at about 55 miles altitude, in the opposite hemisphere.

It was previously believed, the authors write, ...

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The Importance of the Earth’s Atmosphere in Creating the Large storms that Affect Satellite Communications

A study from an international team led by researchers from Nagoya University in Japan and the University of New Hampshire in the United States has revealed the importance of the Earth’s upper atmosphere in determining how large geomagnetic storms develop. Their findings reveal the previously underestimated importance of the Earth’s atmosphere. Understanding the factors that cause geomagnetic storms is important because they can have a direct impact on the Earth’s magnetic field such as causing unwanted currents in the power grid and disrupting radio signals and GPS. This research may help predict the storms that will have the greatest consequences.

Scientists have long known that geomagnetic storms are associated with the activities of the Sun...

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Citizen Science discovers a new form of the Northern Lights

Dune-shaped auroral emissions
Very rarely, a gravity wave rising up in the atmosphere can be filtered and bent to travel between the mesopause and an inversion layer intermittently formed below the mesopause. The mesopause and the inversion layer are colder than the other layers of the atmosphere. In the wave channel established between these two layers, gravity waves coming from below can travel long distances without subsiding. Dune-shaped auroral emissions are created when solar wind charges the oxygen atoms surging through the channel. (Graphic credit: Jani Närhi)

Working together with space researchers, Finnish amateur photographers have discovered a new auroral form...

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Eruptions on the Sun Trigger Surprising Phenomenon near Earth

In connection with violent solar eruptions, large variations occur in electron density in the ionosphere over Greenland, which interferes with GPH navigation signals as well as flight and satellite communication. The figure (right) shows large electron density in red and small density in blue. This phenomenon gives rise to high electron speeds in the ionosphere, exceeding 1,000 metres per second (left) and resulting in violent energy bursts. For the first time ever, researchers from DTU have demonstrated the phenomenon which cannot yet be explained. (Illustration: DTU Space).

In connection with violent solar eruptions, large variations occur in electron density in the ionosphere over Greenland, which interferes with GPH navigation signals as well as flight and satellite communication. The figure (right) shows large electron density in red and small density in blue. This phenomenon gives rise to high electron speeds in the ionosphere, exceeding 1,000 metres per second (left) and resulting in violent energy bursts. For the first time ever, researchers from DTU have demonstrated the phenomenon which cannot yet be explained. (Illustration: DTU Space).

New research from DTU, JPL and University of New Brunswick shows that eruptions on the Sun’s surface not only send bursts of energetic particles into Earth’s atmosphere causing disturbances in our planet’s magnetic fi...

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