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NASA THEMIS makes northern lights discoveries from spacecraft observations

Posted Dec 12, 2007 at 09:59PM by Ira Z. Listed in: News, NASA Tags: NASA, University of California, Northern Lights, THEMIS
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NASA THEMIS makes northern lights discoveries from spacecraft observations - Image 1 


NASA'S spacecraft fleet of Time History Events and Microscale Interactions during Substorms (THEMIS) which was launched in March 23, this year, has announced some astonishing discoveries concerning the Aurora borealis phenomena, also known as the northern lights

First offs, THEMIS satellites along with supporting ground cameras organized to aid the fleet was able to educe three significant points throughout their eight month observation of the northern lights' awe-inspiring eruptions known as "substorms".

THEMIS was able to reveal from the observation of the swift development of substorms that "giant magnetic ropes" (twisted bundles of magnetic fields) were also created along with it. It was found that Earth's atmosphere and the sun was linked through these "ropes". Solar wind particles also pass through them, providing energy for "auroras" and other geomagnetic storms.

According to University of California principal investigator Vassilis Angelopoulus, the manner in which the substorms moved about were quite unexpected. They were noted to have surged upwards with speeds faster than anyone thought it possibly could. The "aurora" moved so fast that it was able to scale a distance of 400 miles in a single minute, said Angelopoulus.

THEMIS photos of the phenomena also revealed a series of abrupt "bursts" through-out the progression of the northern lights, each lasting a total of ten minutes at intervals. Nothing was said about the nature of these outbursts, except that some were quickly snuffed out while the remaining fueled other outbursts which went on to become larger in scale.

On the other hand, Angeloupolus also noted the immense amount of energy that a substorm has. According to him, the sheer amount of a two-hour northern lights event, for example, is estimated to equal a magnitude of a 5.5 scale earthquake or five hundred, thousand, billion Joules! Where does these substorms get their all that energy, you ask? According to Angeloupulos, all of this incredible amounts of energy is derived from the substorm's magnetic ropes.

THEMIS and Angeloupolus findings are scheduled to be presented at the annual meeting of the American Geophysical Union in San Fransisco this month.

[Via Science Daily] Permalink  |   Email this  |   Linking Blogs   |   Digg It!

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