The NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center is pictured.
It doesn't stay on Earth.
The first direct measurement of Earth's long-theorized dynamo on the edge of space was presented by scientists using observations from NASA's ICON mission. The ionosphere is the boundary between Earth and space. It's powered by tidal winds in the upper atmosphere that are faster than hurricanes and rise from the lower atmosphere, creating an electrical environment that can affect satellites and technology on Earth.
The new work in Nature Geoscience improves our understanding of the ionosphere, which helps scientists better predict space weather and protect our technology from its effects.
ICON is a mission to untangle how Earth's weather interacts with the weather in space. The ionosphere is home to the International Space Station and the Auroras. These signals can be disrupted by empty pockets or dense swells of charged particles.
The atmosphere and space weather have been studied by scientists for a long time because they knew the effects of the Earth's dynamo. They had to make assumptions about how it works. Data from ICON is the first concrete observation of the winds that fuel the dynamo and eventually influence space weather.
Predicting the winds in the ionosphere is a key to improving our ability to predict what will happen in the ionosphere, according to a new study.
In the ionosphere, high-altitude winds push on charged particles more than negatively charged electrons. Near the bottom of the ionosphere, there is an electric field created by the separation of ion and electrons. NASA's Conceptual Animation Lab is crediting.
Earth's sky-high generator.
The ionosphere is made up of charged particles created by the Sun and mixed with the neutral upper atmosphere. The ionosphere responds to changes from both the Sun above and the Earth below. Researchers are interested in figuring out how much influence comes from each side. The lower atmosphere is where the researchers found most of the change they observed came from.
Generators work by moving a conductor through a magnetic field. The ionosphere is filled with charged gases called plasm, and it acts like a wire. The atmosphere is like the core of Earth, with a dynamo in it.
The ionosphere, a layer of the upper atmosphere known for its high temperatures, is pushed by strong winds in the thermoosphere, a layer of the upper atmosphere known for its high temperatures. The wind tends to push on particles that are positive and negative. "You get pluses moving differently than minuses," said co-author Brian Harding. "That's an electric current."
These components are bound tightly so they act predictably in most generators. The ionosphere is free to move as it pleases. Immel said that the current generated its own magnetic field, which fought Earth's magnetic field as it passed through. You end up with a wire trying to escape. It's a messy generator.
The data visualization shows the ICON spacecraft. The green arrows show the winds that were detected by the MIGHTI wind imager. Changes in the lower-altitude atmosphere can change the winds. The particle motion high in the ionosphere is changed by this. ICON detected changes in the atmosphere at a altitude of over 400 miles above Earth's surface. The magnetic field lines are shown in a bright yellow colour as the direction of the plasma is influenced by the winds detected by MIGHTI. William T. Bridgman is the creator of NASA's Scientific Visualization Studio.
Predicting space weather's potential impacts is dependent on the ionosphere. The ionosphere shoots out into space or plummets toward Earth depending on the wind. This behavior is caused by the tug-of-war between the ionosphere and Earth.
The lower end of the ionosphere is a mystery because it's difficult to observe. It's too high for scientific balloons and too low for satellites, so researchers can't use many of the tools they need. ICON is able to investigate this part of the ionosphere by using the upper atmosphere's natural glow to detect the motion of plasma.
ICON is simultaneously watching the winds and the plasma. "This was the first time we could tell how much the wind contributes to the ionosphere's behavior, without any assumptions," said Astrid Maute, another study co-author and ICON scientist at the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colorado.
Immel said that scientists have only realized how much the winds vary in the past decade. He said the upper atmosphere wasn't expected to change quickly. It does, day to day. Changes driven up from the lower atmosphere are to blame.
The daily cycles of cloud formation create a cycle of heating and cooling in the atmosphere. Wind patterns are pushed out by the heating and cooling. The winds eventually form an atmospheric tide. NASA has a Conceptual Animation Lab.
Wind power.
The winds that skim the surface of Earth are familiar, from gentle breezes to bracing gusts that blow one way and then the other.
High-altitude winds are not the same as low-altitude winds. In the lower thermoosphere, winds can blow in the same direction at the same speed for a few hours before changing direction. The strongest Category 5 hurricanes tear at 157 mph or more.
Waves of air, called tides, are born at Earth's surface when the lower atmosphere warms up during the day and cools off at night. They carry changes from below through the sky.
The thinner the atmosphere becomes, the less turbulence there is to disrupt these motions. Small tides can grow larger when they reach the upper atmosphere. The winds up there are mostly controlled by what happens below.
Three main peaks that span across the globe are formed by atmospheric tides created by rainforests. As the Earth rotates, these move around it. NASA has a Conceptual Animation Lab.
ICON's new wind measurement help scientists understand the effects of the tides on the globe.
Tides build in strength and grow before blowing through the ionosphere. In response, the electric dynamo revved up.
The first year of ICON data was analyzed by scientists and they found that high-altitude winds had a strong influence on the ionosphere. There was a clear wave-like structure after we traced the pattern of how the ionosphere moves. He explained that the changes in the wind were related to the dance of the plasma above Earth's surface.
Immel said that half of the motion of the plasma can be attributed to the winds. If you want to predict what plasma is doing, you need to make an important observation.
The quiet phase of the Sun's 11-year activity cycle coincides with ICON's first year of observations. The Sun's behavior was low and constant. Immel said that they saw a lot of variability from below and then remarkable changes in the ionosphere. The researchers could not rule out the Sun as the main influence.
At 60-95 miles above the ground, winds associated with atmospheric tides move ion and electrons and form an electric field in the dynamo region. The electric field in the upper atmosphere pushes theplasma upwards and downwards like a fountain. NASA has a Conceptual Animation Lab.
Scientists will be able to study more complex changes and interactions between space and Earth's atmosphere as the Sun ramps up.
Immel is excited to have confirmation of long-held ionosphere theories. He said that they found half of what causes the ionosphere to behave. This is what we wanted to know.
This leaves room to explore what else is contributing to the ionosphere's behavior.
The article is titled "Regulation of ionospheric plasma velocities by thermospheric winds" and can be found at www.nature.com. There is a DOI of 10.1038/s41561-021-0
The journal information is Nature Geoscience.
NASA's ICON found strong winds power electric fields in the upper atmosphere on November 30, 2021.
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