The Tonga Volcanic Eruption Was So Powerful It Sent Ripples Out Into Space

The powerful explosion that occurred on January 15, 2022, was the result of the ongoing volcanic eruption in Tonga.

It generated an enormous cloud of ash, earthquakes, and tsunamis that reached as far as the distant coastlines of Peru on the other side of the Pacific.

The effects of the eruption in space are being looked at by scientists.

The second layer of the atmosphere was reached by the eruption column. The sound of the explosion was heard thousands of kilometers away. The sound waves were even detected in the UK by barometers.

A series of so-called "atmospheric gravity waves", which were detected by a NASA satellite, were generated by the eruption.

Scientists are looking to see what impact these waves have on space.

The purpose of our research is to better understand the top levels of the atmosphere, well above where the International Space Station (ISS) flies, and in particular to what extent changes in it are driven by events on Earth.

It could help us understand how technology is affected by volcanic eruptions.

The atmosphere is mostly transparent to the human eye and we don't think of it as a complex and dynamic structure. The Karman line is 100 km above sea level and is where space officially starts.

Waves on the surface of the sea are waves on the atmospheric layers. Any number of phenomena can cause such atmospheric gravity waves.

You have probably seen the effects of these waves, as they can create undulating clouds.

Waves travel upwards to some of the highest parts of our planet's atmosphere, called the ionosphere.

This is a region of the Earth's atmosphere that spans from 65 km to over 1,000 km up. At these altitudes, atmospheric gases are formed into a charged particle called a "plasma", which is made up of positive and negative atoms.

High-energy particles from space and the Sun cause ionizing in the atmosphere.

The attraction of oppositely charged particles can cause them to recombine, like a magnet sticking to a fridge door.

There is a constant change in the ionosphere between the production and loss of plasma.

These processes can affect the wavelength of radio light. The ionosphere can reflect radio waves at certain frequencies, scatter them at others, or even block them entirely.

The ionosphere is useful for a number of modern technologies.

The ionosphere is subject to weather. This can be caused by the space environment or by events on Earth.

There are problems in the space.

Traveling ionospheric disturbances are caused by atmospheric gravity waves generated by a volcanic eruption.

These waves can travel for thousands of miles around the globe and enhance the fluctuations in the density of the plasma. Modern technology can be disrupted by these effects.

In the past, eruptions have been associated with changes in the ionosphere, for example in 2015 and 2013).

I use data from a facility called the Low Frequency Array to study the effects of the disturbances. One of the world's largest radio telescopes, called lofar, consists of dozens of radio antennas spread across Europe and is designed to observe distant natural radio sources in the early Universe.

The view of objects through a glass of water can become distorted when we stir or shake it, just like the appearance of radio sources in space.

One can use these distortions to understand what is happening in the ionosphere. Traveling ionospheric disturbances can enhance these distortions.

The video above was created by Richard Fallows. Natural radio sources are the bright points of light. The ionosphere is disturbed in the right panel of the left panel. The sources can be seen to change positions quickly.

We will be looking at our data carefully over the next few weeks to see if there are any differences that could be related to the eruption of the Tongan volcano.

The research could help us understand how volcanoes affect space and technology.

As the ionosphere is the atmospheric interface between Earth and space, it may shed light on the precise degree to which disturbances are driven by space weather events.

The University of Birmingham has a Post Doctoral Research Fellow in Space Science.

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