A new paper confirms that what scientists saw in 2022 was a polar shower aurora, an extremely rare phenomenon.
The auroras They are phenomena that captivate our eyes. They are a reminder of how dazzling and beautiful nature is. And also, They are not exactly unusual events, because there are places on Earth that are used to them. But, if we talk about a “polar rain aurora””, things change in the last point.
It turns out that in 2022almost as a gift from Christmasa huge aurora illuminated the sky for thousands of kilometers around the North Poleduring the the last hours of December 25 and the first hours of the 26th.
«This dawn It had a very soft shape and its structure was a diffuse greenish spot.. “It was like a big greenish cake,” he explains. Keisuke Hosokawaspace physicist Tokyo University of Electrocommunications (Japan).
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Probably, leaving aside the expert’s assessments, you are wondering what was so special about this aurora which, although it has the potential to amaze, is not far from what we imagine with these atmospheric phenomena. But if there is something that distinguishes it of the majority. We tell you.
polar rain aurora
Let’s first put on the topic what a Northern Lights. These are atmospheric phenomena that manifest with natural lights in the sky and are formed when the Charged particles flowing from the Sun collide and interact with the Earth’s magnetic field. What happens then with the polar rain aurora?
The aurora seen at the end of 2022 is classified as one of “polar rain”. Unlike the others, this is formed when electrons traveling directly from the Sun’s corona, or outermost atmosphere, They collide with the Earth’s atmosphere, and not with the magnetic field.
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According to the information shared with us by the specialized magazine, Nature, A polar shower aurora is rare because there are rarely enough of these electrons crashing into the atmosphere. to generate a glow. In addition to this, other types of charged particles interfere with their formation.
At the time, although the scientists who detected the event saw something special, They weren’t sure what it was about. After analyzing the nature of life, They discovered that it was an aurora of polar rainand they report on this in an article in the magazine Science Advances.
“What’s really exciting about this article is that it shows that there are still fundamental discoveries to be made“, it states Larry Paxtonco-author and astrophysicist at the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory (United States).
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