Shock! Examine Exhibits Photo voltaic Winds Hit The North Pole Extra Than The South – Watts Up With That?
From the UA website and the not THAT Mann section:
Physicists at the University of Alberta have discovered a surprising imbalance in the Earth’s response to sun-powered space weather. Energy that is generated when the electrically charged particles hit the earth in the solar wind causes more electromagnetic energy to be directed towards the magnetic north pole than towards the magnetic south pole.
The sun bathes our planet in light and warmth in order to sustain life, but also bombards us with dangerous charged particles in the solar wind. The resulting space weather can damage communication networks, navigation systems such as GPS and satellites. Severe solar storms can even result in blackouts, such as a 12-hour blackout that Quebec suffered in 1989.
Like a magnet, the earth’s magnetic field on the surface can be defined by the north and south magnetic poles, which are loosely aligned with the axis of rotation. Previously, it was believed that the same amount of electromagnetic energy in space would reach both hemispheres of our planet.
Credits: © Planetary Visions (Credit: ESA / Planetary Visions)
Using information from the European Space Agency (ESA) swarm satellite constellation, the Canadian team of scientists at the U of A discovered that electromagnetic energy carried by space weather clearly favors the north. An integral part of the research was data from an electric field instrument developed in Canada by the University of Calgary. The research discovery resulted from a partnership between the two universities in Alberta and ESA and underscores the international research excellence in space exploration in the province.
“We are fortunate to have ESA’s three swarm satellites in orbit, which provide vital information that is not only vital to our scientific research, but can also lead to some very practical solutions to our daily lives,” said Ian Ian, co-author of U of A. Mann, Professor in the Physics Department.
“Since the south magnetic pole is further away from the Earth’s spin axis than the north magnetic pole, an asymmetry is imposed on how much energy flows north and south down to the earth,” explained Ivan Pakhotin, lead author and postdoctoral fellow in the Faculty of Physics.
The new findings suggest that the magnetic field not only protects the earth from incident solar radiation, but also actively controls how the energy is distributed and conducted into the upper atmosphere.
“We’re not sure yet how this asymmetry might work, but it could also indicate a possible asymmetry in space weather and possibly between the aurora australis in the south and the aurora borealis in the north,” said Pakhotin. “Our results also suggest that the dynamics of upper atmosphere chemistry can vary between hemispheres, especially during times of high geomagnetic activity.”
Weathering of geomagnetic storms
“The sun’s activity, such as mass ejections of corona, can have potentially serious consequences for our modern way of life,” said Mann. “So it is very important to study the underlying physics of space weather and the complexity of our magnetic field in order to build early warning systems and develop better power grids that can better withstand the disturbances that the sun throws at us.”
In orbit since 2013, the three identical swarm satellites have not only returned information about how the Earth’s magnetic field protects us from the dangerous particles in the solar wind, but also insights into the generation of the field, its variation and the position of the magnet north changes over the course of the year Time.
The study “Preferring terrestrial electromagnetic energy from space weather in the north” was published in Nature Communications.
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