They solve the mysteries of the aurorae boreales
The scientists have deciphered some of the mysteries that there are behind the aurora borealis.
In the last days the NASA revealed discoveries that they indicate that happened magnetic explosions to a third of distance of the Earth to the Moon cause that the aurora borealis, or lights of the north, suddenly burst in into forms and spectacular colors and dance by the sky.
The discoveries could help the scientists to include/understand better most powerful but less common geomagnetic storms than can disqualify satellites, to damage astronauts in orbit and to interrupt electricity and communications in the Earth, they indicated the specialists.
SATELLITES THEMIS
A fleet of five small satellites, Themis calls, observed the beginning of a geomagnetic storm in February of the current year, while earth observatories in Canada and Alaska recorded the luminosity of the aurora borealis. The austral aurora, or lights of the south, also shone and it moved at the same time through sky.
The sudden outbreaks of the auroras happen every two or three days, in average.
An equipment headed by the scientist Vassilis Angelopoulos, of the University of California in Los Angeles, confirmed that the storm observed approximately 128,750 kilometers of the Earth was detonated by a phenomenon known as plasma bullets or magnetic reconexión . From time to time, the solar energy makes stretch the magnetic fields of the planet like a rubber band, these is broken, returned to the Earth and they are reconectan, creating a short circuit.
[...] the Earth and that it protects to us of the solar wind. To explore this bubble is the intention of mission THEMIS, sent in February of 2007. The sensors on board registered a wind particle torrent [...]