| |
KF5JRV > TECH 26.06.21 13:36l 15 Lines 1612 Bytes #999 (0) @ WW
BID : 18178_KF5JRV
Read: GUEST
Subj: Northern Lights
Path: IZ3LSV<DB0ERF<DK0WUE<PE1RRR<VK2IO<N7HPX<KF5JRV
Sent: 210626/1135Z 18178@KF5JRV.#NWAR.AR.USA.NA BPQ6.0.20
By re-creating the conditions for an aurora in the lab, researchers have confirmed how these bright, shimmery curtains of light form.
The northern lights arise when electrons from space cascade into the upper atmosphere, where they collide with oxygen and nitrogen molecules to paint the sky red and green. But it has been difficult to discern what, exactly, draws those electrons down toward Earth. For decades, scientists have suspected that electrons ride ripples in Earth’s magnetic field, called Alfvén waves, into the atmosphere, like tiny surfers catching waves to shore. But no satellite has ever directly observed this happening.
The team filled a 20-meter-long, 1-meter-wide tube with a soup of charged particles, or plasma. Electrical coils created a magnetic field running the length of the chamber. An antenna at one end of the instrument generated its own magnetic field, which essentially plucked the magnetic field lines within the canister to send Alfvén waves rippling through the plasma.
As expected, electrons in the plasma got swept up in the Alfvén waves and accelerated down the chamber. What’s more, “the energy gained per electron per second was similar, in our experiment, to what would be needed out in space to create an aurora,ö says Schroeder, of Wheaton College in Illinois.
These results not only confirm the physics behind atmospheric light shows on Earth, Schroeder says. “What’s happening here could very likely be happening at Jupiter, or anywhere else, like Saturn, where we see auroras.ö
73 de Scott KF5JRV
Pmail: KF5JRV@KF5JRV.#NWAR.AR.USA.NA
Email KF5JRV@gmail.com
Read previous mail | Read next mail
| |
