Cause of Aurora Borealis Confirmed

An anonymous reader writes "There are reports that satellites have aided scientists in confirming why the Aurora Borealis (Northern Lights) exists. 'New data from NASA's Themis mission, a quintet of satellites launched this winter, found the energy comes from a stream of charged particles from the sun flowing like a current through twisted bundles of magnetic fields connecting Earth's upper atmosphere to the sun. The energy is then abruptly released in the form of a shimmering display of lights.'"

Comments

The More Important Discovery

[pln2bz]

The interesting new information is actually the following:

"THEMIS encountered its first magnetic rope on May 20, 2007," says Sibeck. "It was very large, about as wide as Earth, and located approximately 40,000 miles above Earth's surface in a region called the magnetopause." The magnetopause is where the solar wind and Earth's magnetic field meet and push against one another like sumo wrestlers locked in combat. There, the rope formed and unraveled in just a few minutes, providing a brief but significant conduit for solar wind energy. Other ropes quickly followed: "They seem to occur all the time," says Sibeck.

What happens within the laboratory with *electrical* plasmas is that the plasma will tend to form filaments of charged particles. It is a natural state of the plasma. Furthermore, multiple filaments will tend to possess long-range attraction and short-range repulsion with one another. In other words, they will twist around one another without fully combining. This can be observed by any layperson by looking closely at the point where your novelty plasma globe's filaments touch the glass. What appears as one filament from a distance is in fact two filaments twisting around one another like a rope that unwind with contact to glass. This roped structure within the laboratory constitutes a flow of charged particles, and as those charged particles move across the rope in response to voltage potentials, this flow of charged particles will in turn create helical magnetic fields around the filaments. Maxwell's Equations demand it.

The observation of a roped magnetic structure connecting the Sun and Earth is extremely important because we know from our laboratory experiences with plasmas that rope-like structures occur when the plasma is electrical. I'm very curious what the response will be from the astrophysical community about this *structure*. Will they argue that the similarity in morphologies is actually coincidental?

If so, somebody should share the talking points with NASA, because they appear to be off-message ...

From http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/themis/auroras/northern_lights.html:

"THEMIS also has observed a number of small explosions in Earth's magnetic bow shock. "The bow shock is like the bow wave in front of a boat," explained Sibeck. "It is where the solar wind first feels the effects of Earth's magnetic field. Sometimes a burst of electrical current within the solar wind will hit the bow shock and--Bang! We get an explosion."

Re:The More Important Discovery

[Shining Celebi]

Every single person who doubts that this is more than coincidental can surely be excused for the sole reason that the implications are kind of hard to get a full handle on. It's really kind of shocking.

Why yes, I suppose it would be.

Re:The More Important Discovery

[mgmirkin]

"So to sum up your entire post for those that come after me, you are saying "electric universe rules"." -Kagura

No, I think that what he's saying is something to the effect that this shouldn't be news to anybody, but the fact that it is happens to be disheartening.

Specifically, Kristian Birkeland predicted this in his book Norwegian Aurora Polaris Expedition (section 2, I believe).

Specifically, if one references the images contained in the book, things become clear quite quickly:
Chapter VI: On Possible Electric Phenomena in Solar Systems and Nebulae

Take, for instance, an extreme case of his terella in operation:
Figure 259

How do you like them "flux ropes?"

This image hows the terella operating in a mode that exposes the electrical currents for what they are. In this shot, the currents are in "arc mode" (akin to sparks or lightning). Whereas the auroras around Earth are akin to a "glow mode" discharge. Birkeland currents in interplanetary space are a "dark mode" discharge (IE, not glowing, but still slowly transferring electric charges in a "dark" current, much like an electrical wire, but in this case a plasma filament). Look it up. Standard plasma physics.

In essence, the solar system can be likened to a virtual "plasma globe." In the "plasma globe" model of the solar system, the sun is the central electrode. The planets are akin to people pressing their fingers to the outer glass because it's cool to watch the filaments connect to the spot you touch. The "magnetic flux ropes" are akin to the plasma filaments connecting the central electrode to the outer glass where fingers touch. The "magnetic flux ropes" are a byproduct of the electrical current (flow of charged particles) connecting the sun to the Earth.

Here's a colorized version of a plasma globe I made for reference:
Plasma globe "sun"

So, yeah, it's something like that.

I really wish it would let me put images in this thing. Ohh well, I said it better over on BAUT anyway (assuming they don't immediately MOD it out of existence, for being presumptuous enough to mention astronomers' apparent blindspot regarding electricity in space).

Did I forget to mention NASA's own rather candid admission that there's an electrical link between the sun and the Earth? "Flux rope" pumps 650,000 Amp current into the arctic! (30 kV battery in space) (Noted on this page: Multimedia for the Press Event for THEMIS.)

In all, what Pln2bz says is quite sage, and I suggest that we listen to him... Rather carefully. He may not be quite as "insane" as some think. It's quite necessary to review the argument based on its merits, and see where it leads. Might just turn science on its ear.

After all, we've just re-learned that Birkeland currents power the magnetosphere. This was confirmed in t he 60s / 70s when we started shooting satellites into space, and it was predicted in the 1900s (appx 1902-1903 was when Birkeland went north; 1908 was when he published Norewgian Aurora Polaris Expedition, to great acclaim pretty much everywhere, except England and America, where an electrically neutral/sterile cosmology had already taken hold, unfortunately, setting us back a

Oblig.

[Xinef Jyinaer]

Aurora Borealis? At this time of year? At this time of day? In this part of the country? Localized entirely within your kitchen?

Yes, but what about the alternatives?

[commisaro]

What about the "Intelligent Twinkling" explanation? Scientists seem completely unwilling to even CONSIDER this possibility!

And that means:

[nofrak]

We still know what we already knew. Tonight I can finally sleep easy!

Re:Okay...

[MobileTatsu-NJG]

"We've confirmed a theory that was already pretty well accepted as being fact."

Way to understate the importance of confirming theories. Heh.

Nonsense.

[Moofie]

It's Dust.

Where's MY Panserbjørne?

Re:What?

[bpsbr_ernie]

I always thought it was fairy dust or glitter from the angels... obviously, I was wrong, its the sun farting in our general direction...

This is the way it's supposed to work

[hyades1]

An excellent example of how science is supposed to get done.

We think we know. We're pretty sure we know. We're damned sure we know and nobody's even close to providing a better explanation. Alright.....this is how it is; take it to the bank. (But we'll still give you a hearing if you have convincing proof something else is happening. You'd better have a testable hypothesis, though).

The method isn't perfect, but it spits out right answers more often than anything else.