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Amazing work! One minor correction: > As particles from the sun hit the atmosphere, they excite the atoms in the air. These excited atoms start to glow, creati
by dpq 11mo ago
Amazing work! One minor correction:
> As particles from the sun hit the atmosphere, they excite the atoms in the air. These excited atoms start to glow, creating brilliant displays of light called auroras.
The process is a bit more nuanced than that. The modern mainstream understanding is that the growing pressure of the solar wind makes the tail of the magnetosphere "contract" (sort of pushing it inwards from the sides), which leads to reconnection of magnetic field lines. Once the reconnection occurs, the magnetic field lines that remain bound to the geomagnetic dipole accelerate the particles on them towards the Earth => they slam into the atmosphere, exciting the atoms and generating the aurora.
- pfdietz 11mo agoRight. So the solar wind provides the energy that drives the aurora, but it's more indirect than just "solar wind particles hit the atmosphere". Instead, the solar wind is injecting energy into the magnetic field of the magnetosphere, and when reconnection occurs some of this magnetic energy is dumped into particles in the magnetosphere, some of which can then strike the atmosphere.
- hwillis 11mo agoAny discussion of aurora which do not mention space tornados: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_tornado https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_tornado Is inherently incomplete. Not necessarily because they're needed to explain it, but they do need to be brought up at any time possible because they're cool.
- hnuser123456 11mo agoI feel that way about galactic center filaments. They just scream "this region of space is not safe" in the most awe-inspiring way to me. 150-lightyear-long, magnetically powered, speed-of-light tornados. And there's hundreds of them. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galactic_Center_filament https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galactic_Center_filament https://science.nasa.gov/asset/webb/milky-way-center-meerkat-and-webb/ https://science.nasa.gov/asset/webb/milky-way-center-meerkat...
- kulahan 11mo agoThese are cool. I wonder how much they screw with satellites etc.? How predictable are they? It seems like it's just a deadly, mostly-invisible wall of energy flying around at unbelievable speeds!
- philipwhiuk 11mo agoThey basically only occur over the poles.