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Aug 1, 2008, 1:20:12 AM8/1/08
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THIS FIRST
http://gizmodo.com/5012347/nasa-scientists-make-magnetic-fields-visible-beautiful
http://gizmodo.com/5028889/themis-satellites-discover-northern-lights-are-powered-by-magnetic-fields-snapping-like-rubber-bands
AURORAS EXPLAINED
http://blog.wired.com/wiredscience/2007/12/northern-lights.html
BY John Borland / December 12, 2007
"This system began observing an enormous substorm, or Northern Light
event, on March 23, which helped trigger the discoveries. The storm
moved faster than anyone had expected, crossing 15 degrees of
longitude in a single minute, about 400 miles per hour. The entire two-
hour event released about five hundred thousand billion Joules, or
about as much energy as a magnitude 5.5 earthquake, researchers said.
Over the next few months, the spacecraft encountered what researchers
call magnetic ropes, essentially bundles of magnetic fields that are
twisted together like twine. The first to be mapped by the THEMIS
satellites was located about 40,000 miles above the Earth's surface,
in the magnetopause, and about as wide as the Earth itself. The
magnetopause is the region where the solar wind – electrically charged
particles that flow away from the sun at incredible speeds – crashes
into the Earth's magnetic field. The "rope" formed there and unraveled
again over the course of just a few minutes, but in the process proved
to be a significant conduit for solar wind energy. "The satellites
have found evidence of magnetic ropes connecting Earth's upper
atmosphere directly to the sun," said David Sibeck, project scientist
for the mission at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center. "We believe
that solar wind particles flow in along these ropes, providing energy
for geomagnetic storms and auroras." The scientists have also
observed the equivalent of a "bow shock," as at the leading edge of a
boat, where the front edge of Earth's magnetic field first encounters
the solar wind. Occasionally a burst of electrical current in the
solar wind will hit this "bow shock," creating an explosion,
researchers said."
MAGNETIC ROPES, TIED TO THE SUN
http://www.newsroom.ucla.edu/portal/ucla/scientists-solve-30-year-old-aurora-53738.aspx
Space scientists at UCLA solve the mystery behind aurora borealis
BY Stuart Wolpert / 7/24/2008
UCLA space scientists and colleagues have identified the mechanism
that triggers substorms in space; wreaks havoc on satellites, power
grids and communications systems; and leads to the explosive release
of energy that causes the spectacular brightening of the aurora
borealis, also known as the northern lights. For 30 years, there have
been two competing theories to explain the onset of these substorms,
which are energy releases in the Earth's magnetosphere, said Vassilis
Angelopoulos, a UCLA professor of Earth and space sciences and
principal investigator of the NASA-funded mission known as THEMIS
(Time History of Events and Macroscale Interactions during Substorms).
One theory is that the trigger happens relatively close to Earth,
about one-sixth of the distance to the moon. According to this theory,
large currents building up in the space environment, which is composed
of charged ions and electrons, or "plasma," are suddenly released by
an explosive instability. The plasma implodes toward Earth as the
space currents are disrupted, which is the start of the substorm.
A second theory says the trigger is farther out, about one-third of
the distance to the moon, and involves a different process: When two
magnetic field lines come close together due to the storage of energy
from the sun, a critical limit is reached and the magnetic field lines
reconnect, causing magnetic energy to be transformed into kinetic
energy and heat. Energy is released, and the plasma is accelerated,
producing accelerated electrons.
Which theory is right?
"Our data show clearly and for the first time that magnetic
reconnection is the trigger," said Angelopoulos, who reports the
research in the July 24 online issue of the journal Science.
"Reconnection results in a slingshot acceleration of waves and plasma
along magnetic field lines, lighting up the aurora underneath even
before the near-Earth space has had a chance to respond. We are
providing the evidence that this is happening."
Previous studies of the Earth's magnetosphere and space weather have
been unable to pinpoint the origin of substorms, which are large
magnetic disturbances. Ionized gas emitted from the sun's surface
speeds up as it moves away from the sun, attaining speeds of 1 million
mph and interacting with the Earth's upper atmosphere, which is also
ionized, Angelopoulos said. Substorms are building blocks of larger
storms. "We need to understand this environment and eventually be able
to predict when these large energy releases will happen so astronauts
can go inside their spacecraft and we can turn off critical systems on
satellites so they will not be damaged," Angelopoulos said. "This has
been exceedingly difficult in the past, because previous missions,
which measured the plasma at one location, were unable to determine
the origin of the large space storms. To resolve this question
properly requires correlations and signal-timing at multiple
locations. This is precisely what was missing until now."
At high northern latitudes in the northern U.S. and Canada, shimmering
bands of light called the aurora borealis, or northern lights, stretch
across the sky from the east to the west. During the geomagnetically
disturbed periods known as substorms, these bands of light brighten.
These multicolored light shows are generated when showers of high-
speed electrons descend along magnetic field lines to strike the
Earth's upper atmosphere. Scientists want to learn when, where and why
solar wind energy stored within the Earth's magnetosphere is
explosively released to accelerate these electrons. THEMIS is
establishing for the first time when and where substorms begin,
determining how the individual components of substorms interact, and
discovering how substorms power the aurora borealis. "We discovered
what sparks the magnificent light show of the aurora," Angelopoulos
said.
THEMIS has five satellites — with electric, magnetic, ion and electron
detectors — in carefully chosen orbits around the Earth and an array
of 20 ground observatories with automated, all-sky cameras located in
the northern U.S. and Canada that catch substorms as they happen. The
ground observatories take images of the aurora in white light. One
satellite is a third of the distance to the moon, one is about a
fourth of the distance and three are about a sixth of the distance.
The outermost satellite takes four days to orbit the Earth, the next
one two days, and the closest ones orbit the Earth in just one day.
Every four days, the satellites line up.
As the satellites are measuring the magnetic and electric fields of
the plasma above the Earth's atmosphere once every four days, the
ground-based observatories are imaging the auroral lights and the
electrical currents from space that generate them. THEMIS was launched
on Feb. 17, 2007, from Cape Canaveral, Fla., and is expected to
observe approximately 30 substorms in its nominal lifetime. "Armed
with this knowledge, we are not only putting to rest age-old questions
about the origin of the spectacular auroral eruptions but will also be
able to provide statistics on substorm evolution and model its effects
on space weather," Angelopoulos said.
The project received a NASA outstanding performance group award this
May. THEMIS is managed by the Explorers Program Office at Goddard
Space Flight Center in Maryland. THEMIS mission co-investigators
include Christopher T. Russell, UCLA professor of geophysics and space
physics and a co-author on the Science paper; Margaret G. Kivelson,
professor of space physics in the UCLA Department of Earth and Space
Sciences; Krishan Khurana, a researcher in the UCLA Department of
Earth and Space Sciences; and scientists from UC Berkeley, where the
mission was put together and half the instruments were built, Germany,
Austria, France, Russia, Japan, Canada and the U.S.
Themis was the blindfolded Greek goddess of order and justice. In 1619
A.D., Galileo Galilei coined the term "aurora borealis" after Aurora,
the Roman goddess of morning. He had the misconception that the
auroras he saw were due to sunlight reflecting from the atmosphere.
THEMIS
http://www.nasa.gov/themis
http://learners.gsfc.nasa.gov/mediaviewer/THEMIS/
http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/themis/main/index.html
http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/themis/multimedia/index.html
http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/themis/auroras/northern_lights_multi.html
http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/themis/auroras/themis_power.html
http://themis.ssl.berkeley.edu/
CONTACT
Vassilis Angelopoulos
http://science.jpl.nasa.gov/people/Angelopoulos/
email : vass...@igpp.ucla.edu / vass...@ucla.edu
ABSTRACT
http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/abstract/1160495
Published Online July 24, 2008 / Science DOI: 10.1126/science.
1160495
Tail Reconnection Triggering Substorm Onset
Magnetospheric substorms explosively release solar wind energy
previously stored in Earth’s magnetotail, encompassing the entire
magnetosphere and producing spectacular auroral displays. It has been
unclear whether a substorm is triggered by a disruption of the
electrical current flowing across the near-Earth magnetotail, at ~10
RE (RE = Earth Radius, or 6374 km), or by the process of magnetic
reconnection typically seen farther out in the magnetotail, at ~20 to
30 RE. We report on simultaneous measurements in the magnetotail at
multiple distances, at the time of substorm onset. Reconnection was
observed at 20 RE, at least 1.5 min before auroral intensification, at
least 2 min before near-Earth current disruption, and about 3 min
before substorm expansion. These results demonstrate that substorms
are likely initiated by tail reconnection.
Vassilis Angelopoulos 1*, James P. McFadden 2, Davin Larson 2, Charles
W. Carlson 2, Stephen B. Mende 2, Harald Frey 2, Tai Phan 2, David G.
Sibeck 3, Karl-Heinz Glassmeier 4, Uli Auster 4, Eric Donovan 5, Ian
R. Mann 6, I. Jonathan Rae 6, Christopher T. Russell 1, Andrei Runov
1, Xu-Zhi Zhou 1, Larry Kepko 7
1 IGPP/ESS, UCLA, Los Angeles, CA, USA.
2 Space Sciences Laboratory, University of California at Berkeley, CA,
USA.
3 Code 674, NASA/GSFC, Greenbelt, MD, USA.
4 TUBS, Braunschweig, D-38106, Germany.
5 Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Calgary, Calgary,
Canada.
6 Department of Physics, University of Alberta, Edmonton, Alberta,
Canada.
7 Space Science Center, University of New Hampshire, Durham, NH, USA.
SPACE WEATHER
http://www.swpc.noaa.gov/index.html
http://www.spaceweather.com/
http://space.rice.edu/ISTP/
SOLAR CYCLE 24
http://www.solarcycle24.com/
http://www.sidc.be/sunspot-data/
http://www.aurorahunter.com/solar-cycle.html
http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2008/10jan_solarcycle24.htm
"On January 4, 2008, a reversed-polarity sunspot appeared—and this
signals the start of Solar Cycle 24," says David Hathaway of the
Marshall Space Flight Center. Solar activity waxes and wanes in 11-
year cycles. Lately, we've been experiencing the low ebb, "very few
flares, sunspots, or activity of any kind," says Hathaway. "Solar
minimum is upon us."
The previous solar cycle, Solar Cycle 23, peaked in 2000-2002 with
many furious solar storms. That cycle decayed as usual to the present
quiet leaving solar physicists little to do other than wonder, when
would the next cycle begin? The answer is now. "New solar cycles
always begin with a high-latitude, reversed polarity sunspot,"
explains Hathaway. "Reversed polarity" means a sunspot with opposite
magnetic polarity compared to sunspots from the previous solar cycle.
"High-latitude" refers to the sun's grid of latitude and longitude.
Old cycle spots congregate near the sun's equator. New cycle spots
appear higher, around 25 or 30 degrees latitude.
The sunspot that appeared on January 4th fits both these criteria. It
was high latitude (30 degrees N) and magnetically reversed. NOAA named
the spot AR10981, or "sunspot 981" for short. Sunspot 981 was small--
only about as wide as Earth, which counts as small on the grand scale
of the sun--and it has already faded away. But its three day
appearance on Jan. 4-6 was enough to convince most solar physicists
that Solar Cycle 24 is underway. Doug Biesecker of NOAA's Space
Weather Prediction Center in Boulder, Colorado, likens sunspot 981 "to
the first robin of spring. There's still snow on the ground, but the
seasons are changing." Last year, Biesecker chaired the Solar Cycle 24
Prediction Panel, an international group of experts from many
universities and government agencies. "We predicted that Solar Cycle
24 would begin around March 2008 and it looks like we weren't far
off," he says.
The onset of a new solar cycle is significant because of our
increasingly space-based technological society. "Solar storms can
disable satellites that we depend on for weather forecasts and GPS
navigation," says Hathaway. Radio bursts from solar flares can
directly interfere with cell phone reception while coronal mass
ejections (CMEs) hitting Earth can cause electrical power outages.
"The most famous example is the Quebec outage of 1989, which left some
Canadians without power for as much as six days."
Air travel can be affected, too. Every year, intercontinental flights
carry thousands of passengers over Earth’s poles. It's the shortest
distance between, say, New York and Tokyo or Beijing and Chicago. In
1999, United Airlines made just twelve trips over the Arctic. By 2005,
the number of flights had ballooned to 1,402. Other airlines report
similar growth. "Solar storms have a big effect on polar regions of
our planet," says Steve Hill of the Space Weather Prediction Center.
"When airplanes fly over the poles during solar storms, they can
experience radio blackouts, navigation errors and computer reboots all
caused by space radiation." Avoiding the poles during solar storms
solves the problem, but it costs extra time, money and fuel to "take
the long way around."
Now for the good news: More solar storms also means more auroras—"the
greatest show on Earth." During the last solar maximum, Northern
Lights were spotted as far south as Arizona, Florida and California.
Not so long ago, only visitors to the Arctic regularly enjoyed
auroras, but with increasing attention to space weather and constantly
improving forecasts, millions of people at all latitudes will know
when to go out and look. Much of this is still years away. "Intense
solar activity won't begin immediately," notes Hathaway. "Solar cycles
usually take a few years to build from solar minimum (where we are
now) to Solar Max, expected in 2011 or 2012."
AURORAS AS SEEN FROM THE INT'L SPACE STATION
http://chamorrobible.org/gpw/gpw-20050129-English.htm
FLY THE BOREALIS
http://www.rymdbolaget.se/?id=5104&cid=6476&DivId=&Year=2007
http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2007/dec/29/spaceexploration.northernlights
http://www.dailygalaxy.com/my_weblog/2008/01/virgin-galactic.html
Virgin Galactic to Offer Space Cruise through Aurora Borealis /
January 09, 2008
Imagine what kind of spectacular show it would be like to fly into the
heart of the Northern Lights. You may not have to imagine forever.
Richard Branson has been busy thinking up new ways to get people
excited about private space tourism, and he’s come up with something
pretty spectacular. He’s offering to fly the affluent into the world’s
biggest lightshow, the Aurora Borealis. The New Mexico Virgin Galactic
Spaceport isn't scheduled for completion until 2010, but Branson is
already planning his next project from an Arctic launchpad located in
the far north of Sweden in the small town of Kiruna. The Arctic
location provides the town with unrivalled views of the spectacular
phenomenon.
The aurora borealis is named after the Roman goddess of the dawn,
Aurora, and the Greek name for north wind, Boreas. It often appears as
a greenish glow with hints of red and purple. The green and red
emissions come from atomic oxygen. Molecular nitrogen and nitrogen
ions produce some of the low level red and very high blue /violet
aurorae. The lights most often occur from September to October and
from March to April. The Auroras are produced by the collision of
charged particles from the magnetosphere, with atoms and molecules of
the Earth's upper atmosphere. The particles originate from the sun and
arrive at the vicinity of earth in the relatively low-energy solar
wind. Magnetic reconnection accelerates the particles towards earth.
Kiruna already has an existing base called Esrange. Launching humans
into an active aurora is more for excitement than science, but it has
been deemed to be safe. Dr Olle Norberg, Esrange's director, said
they’ve done the research. "Is there a build-up of charge on the
spacecraft? What is the radiation dose that you would receive? Those
studies came out saying it is safe to do this." Safe, and undoubtedly
an incredible view.
MAGNETOSPHERES AND YOU
http://cse.ssl.berkeley.edu/segway/IHY_Files/SunEarthConnection_Feb07-bmendez_IHY.pdf
http://cse.ssl.berkeley.edu/SegwayEd/lessons/exploring_magnetism/
http://www.phy6.org/Education/Intro.html
MARS
http://blog.wired.com/wiredscience/2007/06/shifting_poles_.html
http://www.esa.int/SPECIALS/Mars_Express/SEMSR5MVGJE_0.html
http://www.esa.int/esaCP/SEMLQ71DU8E_index_0.html
SATURN
http://www.universetoday.com/2006/03/07/saturns-northern-lights-can-go-backwards/
http://www.mpg.de/english/illustrationsDocumentation/documentation/pressReleases/2006/pressRelease200603062/
GANYMEDE MAGNETOPSHERE AS SOUND FILE
http://www.cosmosmagazine.com/news/1699/auroras-brighten-ganymedes-poles
http://www-pw.physics.uiowa.edu/%7Ewsk/galileo/planetfest/ga.htm
http://www-pw.physics.uiowa.edu/%7Ewsk/galileo/planetfest/gantest.mov
"This Quicktime Movie (3.9MB) allows you to hear the plasma waves
observed by the Galileo Plasma Wave Receiver as it flew past Ganymede.
The image is a dynamic spectrogram showing the intensity of waves as a
function of frequency (vertical axis) and time (horizontal axis) in
which red indicates high intensity waves and blue indicates low
intensities. This spectrogram was obtained by Fourier transforming the
actual waveform from the electric antenna at a sample rate of 201,600
samples per second. We have used the same waveform to generate an
audio signal but have used a sample rate of about a factor of 9 slower
in order to shift the 80-kHz bandwidth down into the audio frequency
range. We have also used a technique called time-slicing to reduce the
45-minute recording to just one minute. The cursor moves across the
spectrogram as the audio signal is played."
EARTH'S POLES TO FLIP
http://www.cosmosmagazine.com/news/1967/earths-poles-long-overdue-reversal
Earth's poles long overdue for reversal
BY Claire Thomas / 5 May 2008
A reversal of the Earth's magnetic poles could happen sooner than we
think, according to Dutch scientists who report that the planet's
magnetic field is becoming gradually less stable. A reversal could
affect everything from navigation and communications equipment to the
composition of the atmosphere, say experts. The report, published
today in the U.K. journal Nature Geoscience, found that reversals have
been far more common in the last 200 million years than they were deep
in the planet's history.
Researchers, led by Andrew Biggin of the University of Utrecht in the
Netherlands, made the discovery by analysing rocks formed between 2.45
to 2.82 billion years ago. The story of the Earth's magnetic field is
written in rocks over time. Because these rocks become 'magnetised' at
the time of their formation, scientists can discover which direction
the poles were facing and how strong the Earth's magnetic field was at
that time. The magnetic poles wander around the vicinity of the
geographic poles all the time – the north magnetic pole currently
resides in the Canadian Arctic. However, at relatively regular
intervals throughout the 4.5 billion year history of the planet, the
magnetic poles have flipped completely. A few thousand years before a
reversal, the magnetic field gradually gets weaker; something which
could cause problems for inhabitants of the planet. "The Earth's
magnetic field is important for shielding the atmosphere, and us, from
damage caused by the solar wind," explained Biggin. "It's also used by
us and other species for navigation". An increase in solar wind would
disrupt communications equipment and power grids.
Current records suggest that we are long overdue for our next
reversal, he said. "On average, there is a reversal around every
400,000 years, but this varies a lot." The geological record suggests
that the last reversal was around 800,000 years ago. Furthermore,
there is already evidence to show that the field has been weakening
over the last few centuries – some archaeological remains suggest that
the field was far stronger in the time of the Roman Empire, some 2,000
years ago.
Don't throw away your compass just yet though – major changes may not
even happen in our lifetimes. "The reversal process is very
unpredictable," said Biggin. "We could be heading into a reversal in
the next few centuries, or we might be waiting another million years".
Even then, reversal is a slow process, which can take some thousands
of years to complete.
But what about the effect on living organisms? Another paper,
published in Nature in March suggested that some species that rely on
the field for navigation or orientation have taken a knock from pole
reversals in the past. Author David Gubbins, of the University of
Leeds in England, said that some single-celled organisms that relied
on magnetism to tell up from down likely went extinct during past
reversals. Human beings have survived reversals in the past, however,
added Gubbins, "so we are likely to come through the next one
unscathed."
CONTACT
Andrew Biggin
http://www.geo.uu.nl/Research/Paleomagnetism/
email : big...@geo.uu.nl
David Gubbins
http://www.see.leeds.ac.uk/people/d.gubbins
d.gu...@see.leeds.ac.uk
SEE ALSO
http://www.cosmosmagazine.com/news/1952/solar-flares-leave-sun-quaking
http://www.cosmosmagazine.com/news/1921/scientists-find-source-solar-fountains
http://www.cosmosmagazine.com/news/593/sun-about-enter-new-cycle-solar-storms
http://www.cosmosmagazine.com/news/634/space-sunny-with-localised-storms
STEREO (SUN IN 3-D)
http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/stereo/main/index.html
http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/stereo/multimedia/index.html
http://stereo.gsfc.nasa.gov/classroom/glasses.shtml
SOHO
http://soho.nascom.nasa.gov/
http://soho.nascom.nasa.gov/spaceweather/
http://soho.nascom.nasa.gov/data/data.html
http://soho.nascom.nasa.gov/gallery/Helioseismology/
http://soho.nascom.nasa.gov/hotshots/2003_11_04/
HINODE
http://solarb.msfc.nasa.gov/
http://solarb.msfc.nasa.gov/news/movies.html
RESEARCH CIRCA 1913
http://www.plasma-universe.com/index.php/Texts:On_Possible_Electric_Phenomena_in_Solar_Systems_and_Nebulae
BOREALISTS
http://salmon.nict.go.jp/awc/contents/index_e.php
http://www.ursispaltenstein.ch/blog/weblog.php?/weblog/aurora_season_begins/
http://aurora.corank.com/
http://gse.gi.alaska.edu/recent/javascript_movie.html
http://www.gedds.alaska.edu/AuroraForecast/
http://www.antarcticimages.com/gallery/5140882_A29yw#310852720_5ensK-A-LB
http://www.frozensouth.com/
http://virtual.finland.fi/finfo/English/aurora_borealis.html
http://www.polarimage.fi/
PREVIOUSLY ON SPECTRE --- STARS HAVE WEATHER
http://groups.google.com/group/spectre_event_horizon_group/browse_thread/thread/5e989c6b4266107f/b77552870dc9ca88?lnk=gst&q=BOREALIS#b77552870dc9ca88
SOLAR FLARES, AND OTHER PROTECTIONS
http://groups.google.com/group/spectre_event_horizon_group/browse_thread/thread/e240fd92f48a1dc1/b89854b6130a9cee?lnk=gst&q=SUNSPOT#b89854b6130a9cee
WHAT THE SUN SOUNDS LIKE
http://groups.google.com/group/spectre_event_horizon_group/browse_thread/thread/e517c959cde79c1/9ec5609f910c88ed?lnk=gst&q=MAGNETOSPHERE#9ec5609f910c88ed
SPACE SMELLS LIKE
http://groups.google.com/group/spectre_event_horizon_group/browse_thread/thread/df2b786c416f16c/d952c73167f35183?lnk=gst&q=SPACE#d952c73167f35183
THE SMELL OF MOONDUST
http://groups.google.com/group/spectre_event_horizon_group/browse_thread/thread/5fc33d6c5b4ed858/5e36762a9034d0f1?lnk=gst&q=moondust#5e36762a9034d0f1
LASTLY
http://gizmodo.com/gadgets/cellphones/the-northern-lights-streamed-live-to-your-phone-for-some-reason-240879.php
http://gizmodo.com/5012347/nasa-scientists-make-magnetic-fields-visible-beautiful
http://gizmodo.com/5028889/themis-satellites-discover-northern-lights-are-powered-by-magnetic-fields-snapping-like-rubber-bands
AURORAS EXPLAINED
http://blog.wired.com/wiredscience/2007/12/northern-lights.html
BY John Borland / December 12, 2007
"This system began observing an enormous substorm, or Northern Light
event, on March 23, which helped trigger the discoveries. The storm
moved faster than anyone had expected, crossing 15 degrees of
longitude in a single minute, about 400 miles per hour. The entire two-
hour event released about five hundred thousand billion Joules, or
about as much energy as a magnitude 5.5 earthquake, researchers said.
Over the next few months, the spacecraft encountered what researchers
call magnetic ropes, essentially bundles of magnetic fields that are
twisted together like twine. The first to be mapped by the THEMIS
satellites was located about 40,000 miles above the Earth's surface,
in the magnetopause, and about as wide as the Earth itself. The
magnetopause is the region where the solar wind – electrically charged
particles that flow away from the sun at incredible speeds – crashes
into the Earth's magnetic field. The "rope" formed there and unraveled
again over the course of just a few minutes, but in the process proved
to be a significant conduit for solar wind energy. "The satellites
have found evidence of magnetic ropes connecting Earth's upper
atmosphere directly to the sun," said David Sibeck, project scientist
for the mission at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center. "We believe
that solar wind particles flow in along these ropes, providing energy
for geomagnetic storms and auroras." The scientists have also
observed the equivalent of a "bow shock," as at the leading edge of a
boat, where the front edge of Earth's magnetic field first encounters
the solar wind. Occasionally a burst of electrical current in the
solar wind will hit this "bow shock," creating an explosion,
researchers said."
MAGNETIC ROPES, TIED TO THE SUN
http://www.newsroom.ucla.edu/portal/ucla/scientists-solve-30-year-old-aurora-53738.aspx
Space scientists at UCLA solve the mystery behind aurora borealis
BY Stuart Wolpert / 7/24/2008
UCLA space scientists and colleagues have identified the mechanism
that triggers substorms in space; wreaks havoc on satellites, power
grids and communications systems; and leads to the explosive release
of energy that causes the spectacular brightening of the aurora
borealis, also known as the northern lights. For 30 years, there have
been two competing theories to explain the onset of these substorms,
which are energy releases in the Earth's magnetosphere, said Vassilis
Angelopoulos, a UCLA professor of Earth and space sciences and
principal investigator of the NASA-funded mission known as THEMIS
(Time History of Events and Macroscale Interactions during Substorms).
One theory is that the trigger happens relatively close to Earth,
about one-sixth of the distance to the moon. According to this theory,
large currents building up in the space environment, which is composed
of charged ions and electrons, or "plasma," are suddenly released by
an explosive instability. The plasma implodes toward Earth as the
space currents are disrupted, which is the start of the substorm.
A second theory says the trigger is farther out, about one-third of
the distance to the moon, and involves a different process: When two
magnetic field lines come close together due to the storage of energy
from the sun, a critical limit is reached and the magnetic field lines
reconnect, causing magnetic energy to be transformed into kinetic
energy and heat. Energy is released, and the plasma is accelerated,
producing accelerated electrons.
Which theory is right?
"Our data show clearly and for the first time that magnetic
reconnection is the trigger," said Angelopoulos, who reports the
research in the July 24 online issue of the journal Science.
"Reconnection results in a slingshot acceleration of waves and plasma
along magnetic field lines, lighting up the aurora underneath even
before the near-Earth space has had a chance to respond. We are
providing the evidence that this is happening."
Previous studies of the Earth's magnetosphere and space weather have
been unable to pinpoint the origin of substorms, which are large
magnetic disturbances. Ionized gas emitted from the sun's surface
speeds up as it moves away from the sun, attaining speeds of 1 million
mph and interacting with the Earth's upper atmosphere, which is also
ionized, Angelopoulos said. Substorms are building blocks of larger
storms. "We need to understand this environment and eventually be able
to predict when these large energy releases will happen so astronauts
can go inside their spacecraft and we can turn off critical systems on
satellites so they will not be damaged," Angelopoulos said. "This has
been exceedingly difficult in the past, because previous missions,
which measured the plasma at one location, were unable to determine
the origin of the large space storms. To resolve this question
properly requires correlations and signal-timing at multiple
locations. This is precisely what was missing until now."
At high northern latitudes in the northern U.S. and Canada, shimmering
bands of light called the aurora borealis, or northern lights, stretch
across the sky from the east to the west. During the geomagnetically
disturbed periods known as substorms, these bands of light brighten.
These multicolored light shows are generated when showers of high-
speed electrons descend along magnetic field lines to strike the
Earth's upper atmosphere. Scientists want to learn when, where and why
solar wind energy stored within the Earth's magnetosphere is
explosively released to accelerate these electrons. THEMIS is
establishing for the first time when and where substorms begin,
determining how the individual components of substorms interact, and
discovering how substorms power the aurora borealis. "We discovered
what sparks the magnificent light show of the aurora," Angelopoulos
said.
THEMIS has five satellites — with electric, magnetic, ion and electron
detectors — in carefully chosen orbits around the Earth and an array
of 20 ground observatories with automated, all-sky cameras located in
the northern U.S. and Canada that catch substorms as they happen. The
ground observatories take images of the aurora in white light. One
satellite is a third of the distance to the moon, one is about a
fourth of the distance and three are about a sixth of the distance.
The outermost satellite takes four days to orbit the Earth, the next
one two days, and the closest ones orbit the Earth in just one day.
Every four days, the satellites line up.
As the satellites are measuring the magnetic and electric fields of
the plasma above the Earth's atmosphere once every four days, the
ground-based observatories are imaging the auroral lights and the
electrical currents from space that generate them. THEMIS was launched
on Feb. 17, 2007, from Cape Canaveral, Fla., and is expected to
observe approximately 30 substorms in its nominal lifetime. "Armed
with this knowledge, we are not only putting to rest age-old questions
about the origin of the spectacular auroral eruptions but will also be
able to provide statistics on substorm evolution and model its effects
on space weather," Angelopoulos said.
The project received a NASA outstanding performance group award this
May. THEMIS is managed by the Explorers Program Office at Goddard
Space Flight Center in Maryland. THEMIS mission co-investigators
include Christopher T. Russell, UCLA professor of geophysics and space
physics and a co-author on the Science paper; Margaret G. Kivelson,
professor of space physics in the UCLA Department of Earth and Space
Sciences; Krishan Khurana, a researcher in the UCLA Department of
Earth and Space Sciences; and scientists from UC Berkeley, where the
mission was put together and half the instruments were built, Germany,
Austria, France, Russia, Japan, Canada and the U.S.
Themis was the blindfolded Greek goddess of order and justice. In 1619
A.D., Galileo Galilei coined the term "aurora borealis" after Aurora,
the Roman goddess of morning. He had the misconception that the
auroras he saw were due to sunlight reflecting from the atmosphere.
THEMIS
http://www.nasa.gov/themis
http://learners.gsfc.nasa.gov/mediaviewer/THEMIS/
http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/themis/main/index.html
http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/themis/multimedia/index.html
http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/themis/auroras/northern_lights_multi.html
http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/themis/auroras/themis_power.html
http://themis.ssl.berkeley.edu/
CONTACT
Vassilis Angelopoulos
http://science.jpl.nasa.gov/people/Angelopoulos/
email : vass...@igpp.ucla.edu / vass...@ucla.edu
ABSTRACT
http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/abstract/1160495
Published Online July 24, 2008 / Science DOI: 10.1126/science.
1160495
Tail Reconnection Triggering Substorm Onset
Magnetospheric substorms explosively release solar wind energy
previously stored in Earth’s magnetotail, encompassing the entire
magnetosphere and producing spectacular auroral displays. It has been
unclear whether a substorm is triggered by a disruption of the
electrical current flowing across the near-Earth magnetotail, at ~10
RE (RE = Earth Radius, or 6374 km), or by the process of magnetic
reconnection typically seen farther out in the magnetotail, at ~20 to
30 RE. We report on simultaneous measurements in the magnetotail at
multiple distances, at the time of substorm onset. Reconnection was
observed at 20 RE, at least 1.5 min before auroral intensification, at
least 2 min before near-Earth current disruption, and about 3 min
before substorm expansion. These results demonstrate that substorms
are likely initiated by tail reconnection.
Vassilis Angelopoulos 1*, James P. McFadden 2, Davin Larson 2, Charles
W. Carlson 2, Stephen B. Mende 2, Harald Frey 2, Tai Phan 2, David G.
Sibeck 3, Karl-Heinz Glassmeier 4, Uli Auster 4, Eric Donovan 5, Ian
R. Mann 6, I. Jonathan Rae 6, Christopher T. Russell 1, Andrei Runov
1, Xu-Zhi Zhou 1, Larry Kepko 7
1 IGPP/ESS, UCLA, Los Angeles, CA, USA.
2 Space Sciences Laboratory, University of California at Berkeley, CA,
USA.
3 Code 674, NASA/GSFC, Greenbelt, MD, USA.
4 TUBS, Braunschweig, D-38106, Germany.
5 Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Calgary, Calgary,
Canada.
6 Department of Physics, University of Alberta, Edmonton, Alberta,
Canada.
7 Space Science Center, University of New Hampshire, Durham, NH, USA.
SPACE WEATHER
http://www.swpc.noaa.gov/index.html
http://www.spaceweather.com/
http://space.rice.edu/ISTP/
SOLAR CYCLE 24
http://www.solarcycle24.com/
http://www.sidc.be/sunspot-data/
http://www.aurorahunter.com/solar-cycle.html
http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2008/10jan_solarcycle24.htm
"On January 4, 2008, a reversed-polarity sunspot appeared—and this
signals the start of Solar Cycle 24," says David Hathaway of the
Marshall Space Flight Center. Solar activity waxes and wanes in 11-
year cycles. Lately, we've been experiencing the low ebb, "very few
flares, sunspots, or activity of any kind," says Hathaway. "Solar
minimum is upon us."
The previous solar cycle, Solar Cycle 23, peaked in 2000-2002 with
many furious solar storms. That cycle decayed as usual to the present
quiet leaving solar physicists little to do other than wonder, when
would the next cycle begin? The answer is now. "New solar cycles
always begin with a high-latitude, reversed polarity sunspot,"
explains Hathaway. "Reversed polarity" means a sunspot with opposite
magnetic polarity compared to sunspots from the previous solar cycle.
"High-latitude" refers to the sun's grid of latitude and longitude.
Old cycle spots congregate near the sun's equator. New cycle spots
appear higher, around 25 or 30 degrees latitude.
The sunspot that appeared on January 4th fits both these criteria. It
was high latitude (30 degrees N) and magnetically reversed. NOAA named
the spot AR10981, or "sunspot 981" for short. Sunspot 981 was small--
only about as wide as Earth, which counts as small on the grand scale
of the sun--and it has already faded away. But its three day
appearance on Jan. 4-6 was enough to convince most solar physicists
that Solar Cycle 24 is underway. Doug Biesecker of NOAA's Space
Weather Prediction Center in Boulder, Colorado, likens sunspot 981 "to
the first robin of spring. There's still snow on the ground, but the
seasons are changing." Last year, Biesecker chaired the Solar Cycle 24
Prediction Panel, an international group of experts from many
universities and government agencies. "We predicted that Solar Cycle
24 would begin around March 2008 and it looks like we weren't far
off," he says.
The onset of a new solar cycle is significant because of our
increasingly space-based technological society. "Solar storms can
disable satellites that we depend on for weather forecasts and GPS
navigation," says Hathaway. Radio bursts from solar flares can
directly interfere with cell phone reception while coronal mass
ejections (CMEs) hitting Earth can cause electrical power outages.
"The most famous example is the Quebec outage of 1989, which left some
Canadians without power for as much as six days."
Air travel can be affected, too. Every year, intercontinental flights
carry thousands of passengers over Earth’s poles. It's the shortest
distance between, say, New York and Tokyo or Beijing and Chicago. In
1999, United Airlines made just twelve trips over the Arctic. By 2005,
the number of flights had ballooned to 1,402. Other airlines report
similar growth. "Solar storms have a big effect on polar regions of
our planet," says Steve Hill of the Space Weather Prediction Center.
"When airplanes fly over the poles during solar storms, they can
experience radio blackouts, navigation errors and computer reboots all
caused by space radiation." Avoiding the poles during solar storms
solves the problem, but it costs extra time, money and fuel to "take
the long way around."
Now for the good news: More solar storms also means more auroras—"the
greatest show on Earth." During the last solar maximum, Northern
Lights were spotted as far south as Arizona, Florida and California.
Not so long ago, only visitors to the Arctic regularly enjoyed
auroras, but with increasing attention to space weather and constantly
improving forecasts, millions of people at all latitudes will know
when to go out and look. Much of this is still years away. "Intense
solar activity won't begin immediately," notes Hathaway. "Solar cycles
usually take a few years to build from solar minimum (where we are
now) to Solar Max, expected in 2011 or 2012."
AURORAS AS SEEN FROM THE INT'L SPACE STATION
http://chamorrobible.org/gpw/gpw-20050129-English.htm
FLY THE BOREALIS
http://www.rymdbolaget.se/?id=5104&cid=6476&DivId=&Year=2007
http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2007/dec/29/spaceexploration.northernlights
http://www.dailygalaxy.com/my_weblog/2008/01/virgin-galactic.html
Virgin Galactic to Offer Space Cruise through Aurora Borealis /
January 09, 2008
Imagine what kind of spectacular show it would be like to fly into the
heart of the Northern Lights. You may not have to imagine forever.
Richard Branson has been busy thinking up new ways to get people
excited about private space tourism, and he’s come up with something
pretty spectacular. He’s offering to fly the affluent into the world’s
biggest lightshow, the Aurora Borealis. The New Mexico Virgin Galactic
Spaceport isn't scheduled for completion until 2010, but Branson is
already planning his next project from an Arctic launchpad located in
the far north of Sweden in the small town of Kiruna. The Arctic
location provides the town with unrivalled views of the spectacular
phenomenon.
The aurora borealis is named after the Roman goddess of the dawn,
Aurora, and the Greek name for north wind, Boreas. It often appears as
a greenish glow with hints of red and purple. The green and red
emissions come from atomic oxygen. Molecular nitrogen and nitrogen
ions produce some of the low level red and very high blue /violet
aurorae. The lights most often occur from September to October and
from March to April. The Auroras are produced by the collision of
charged particles from the magnetosphere, with atoms and molecules of
the Earth's upper atmosphere. The particles originate from the sun and
arrive at the vicinity of earth in the relatively low-energy solar
wind. Magnetic reconnection accelerates the particles towards earth.
Kiruna already has an existing base called Esrange. Launching humans
into an active aurora is more for excitement than science, but it has
been deemed to be safe. Dr Olle Norberg, Esrange's director, said
they’ve done the research. "Is there a build-up of charge on the
spacecraft? What is the radiation dose that you would receive? Those
studies came out saying it is safe to do this." Safe, and undoubtedly
an incredible view.
MAGNETOSPHERES AND YOU
http://cse.ssl.berkeley.edu/segway/IHY_Files/SunEarthConnection_Feb07-bmendez_IHY.pdf
http://cse.ssl.berkeley.edu/SegwayEd/lessons/exploring_magnetism/
http://www.phy6.org/Education/Intro.html
MARS
http://blog.wired.com/wiredscience/2007/06/shifting_poles_.html
http://www.esa.int/SPECIALS/Mars_Express/SEMSR5MVGJE_0.html
http://www.esa.int/esaCP/SEMLQ71DU8E_index_0.html
SATURN
http://www.universetoday.com/2006/03/07/saturns-northern-lights-can-go-backwards/
http://www.mpg.de/english/illustrationsDocumentation/documentation/pressReleases/2006/pressRelease200603062/
GANYMEDE MAGNETOPSHERE AS SOUND FILE
http://www.cosmosmagazine.com/news/1699/auroras-brighten-ganymedes-poles
http://www-pw.physics.uiowa.edu/%7Ewsk/galileo/planetfest/ga.htm
http://www-pw.physics.uiowa.edu/%7Ewsk/galileo/planetfest/gantest.mov
"This Quicktime Movie (3.9MB) allows you to hear the plasma waves
observed by the Galileo Plasma Wave Receiver as it flew past Ganymede.
The image is a dynamic spectrogram showing the intensity of waves as a
function of frequency (vertical axis) and time (horizontal axis) in
which red indicates high intensity waves and blue indicates low
intensities. This spectrogram was obtained by Fourier transforming the
actual waveform from the electric antenna at a sample rate of 201,600
samples per second. We have used the same waveform to generate an
audio signal but have used a sample rate of about a factor of 9 slower
in order to shift the 80-kHz bandwidth down into the audio frequency
range. We have also used a technique called time-slicing to reduce the
45-minute recording to just one minute. The cursor moves across the
spectrogram as the audio signal is played."
EARTH'S POLES TO FLIP
http://www.cosmosmagazine.com/news/1967/earths-poles-long-overdue-reversal
Earth's poles long overdue for reversal
BY Claire Thomas / 5 May 2008
A reversal of the Earth's magnetic poles could happen sooner than we
think, according to Dutch scientists who report that the planet's
magnetic field is becoming gradually less stable. A reversal could
affect everything from navigation and communications equipment to the
composition of the atmosphere, say experts. The report, published
today in the U.K. journal Nature Geoscience, found that reversals have
been far more common in the last 200 million years than they were deep
in the planet's history.
Researchers, led by Andrew Biggin of the University of Utrecht in the
Netherlands, made the discovery by analysing rocks formed between 2.45
to 2.82 billion years ago. The story of the Earth's magnetic field is
written in rocks over time. Because these rocks become 'magnetised' at
the time of their formation, scientists can discover which direction
the poles were facing and how strong the Earth's magnetic field was at
that time. The magnetic poles wander around the vicinity of the
geographic poles all the time – the north magnetic pole currently
resides in the Canadian Arctic. However, at relatively regular
intervals throughout the 4.5 billion year history of the planet, the
magnetic poles have flipped completely. A few thousand years before a
reversal, the magnetic field gradually gets weaker; something which
could cause problems for inhabitants of the planet. "The Earth's
magnetic field is important for shielding the atmosphere, and us, from
damage caused by the solar wind," explained Biggin. "It's also used by
us and other species for navigation". An increase in solar wind would
disrupt communications equipment and power grids.
Current records suggest that we are long overdue for our next
reversal, he said. "On average, there is a reversal around every
400,000 years, but this varies a lot." The geological record suggests
that the last reversal was around 800,000 years ago. Furthermore,
there is already evidence to show that the field has been weakening
over the last few centuries – some archaeological remains suggest that
the field was far stronger in the time of the Roman Empire, some 2,000
years ago.
Don't throw away your compass just yet though – major changes may not
even happen in our lifetimes. "The reversal process is very
unpredictable," said Biggin. "We could be heading into a reversal in
the next few centuries, or we might be waiting another million years".
Even then, reversal is a slow process, which can take some thousands
of years to complete.
But what about the effect on living organisms? Another paper,
published in Nature in March suggested that some species that rely on
the field for navigation or orientation have taken a knock from pole
reversals in the past. Author David Gubbins, of the University of
Leeds in England, said that some single-celled organisms that relied
on magnetism to tell up from down likely went extinct during past
reversals. Human beings have survived reversals in the past, however,
added Gubbins, "so we are likely to come through the next one
unscathed."
CONTACT
Andrew Biggin
http://www.geo.uu.nl/Research/Paleomagnetism/
email : big...@geo.uu.nl
David Gubbins
http://www.see.leeds.ac.uk/people/d.gubbins
d.gu...@see.leeds.ac.uk
SEE ALSO
http://www.cosmosmagazine.com/news/1952/solar-flares-leave-sun-quaking
http://www.cosmosmagazine.com/news/1921/scientists-find-source-solar-fountains
http://www.cosmosmagazine.com/news/593/sun-about-enter-new-cycle-solar-storms
http://www.cosmosmagazine.com/news/634/space-sunny-with-localised-storms
STEREO (SUN IN 3-D)
http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/stereo/main/index.html
http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/stereo/multimedia/index.html
http://stereo.gsfc.nasa.gov/classroom/glasses.shtml
SOHO
http://soho.nascom.nasa.gov/
http://soho.nascom.nasa.gov/spaceweather/
http://soho.nascom.nasa.gov/data/data.html
http://soho.nascom.nasa.gov/gallery/Helioseismology/
http://soho.nascom.nasa.gov/hotshots/2003_11_04/
HINODE
http://solarb.msfc.nasa.gov/
http://solarb.msfc.nasa.gov/news/movies.html
RESEARCH CIRCA 1913
http://www.plasma-universe.com/index.php/Texts:On_Possible_Electric_Phenomena_in_Solar_Systems_and_Nebulae
BOREALISTS
http://salmon.nict.go.jp/awc/contents/index_e.php
http://www.ursispaltenstein.ch/blog/weblog.php?/weblog/aurora_season_begins/
http://aurora.corank.com/
http://gse.gi.alaska.edu/recent/javascript_movie.html
http://www.gedds.alaska.edu/AuroraForecast/
http://www.antarcticimages.com/gallery/5140882_A29yw#310852720_5ensK-A-LB
http://www.frozensouth.com/
http://virtual.finland.fi/finfo/English/aurora_borealis.html
http://www.polarimage.fi/
PREVIOUSLY ON SPECTRE --- STARS HAVE WEATHER
http://groups.google.com/group/spectre_event_horizon_group/browse_thread/thread/5e989c6b4266107f/b77552870dc9ca88?lnk=gst&q=BOREALIS#b77552870dc9ca88
SOLAR FLARES, AND OTHER PROTECTIONS
http://groups.google.com/group/spectre_event_horizon_group/browse_thread/thread/e240fd92f48a1dc1/b89854b6130a9cee?lnk=gst&q=SUNSPOT#b89854b6130a9cee
WHAT THE SUN SOUNDS LIKE
http://groups.google.com/group/spectre_event_horizon_group/browse_thread/thread/e517c959cde79c1/9ec5609f910c88ed?lnk=gst&q=MAGNETOSPHERE#9ec5609f910c88ed
SPACE SMELLS LIKE
http://groups.google.com/group/spectre_event_horizon_group/browse_thread/thread/df2b786c416f16c/d952c73167f35183?lnk=gst&q=SPACE#d952c73167f35183
THE SMELL OF MOONDUST
http://groups.google.com/group/spectre_event_horizon_group/browse_thread/thread/5fc33d6c5b4ed858/5e36762a9034d0f1?lnk=gst&q=moondust#5e36762a9034d0f1
LASTLY
http://gizmodo.com/gadgets/cellphones/the-northern-lights-streamed-live-to-your-phone-for-some-reason-240879.php
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