When it comes to the concept of space weather scientists tend to predict this unusual concept by the behavior of the solar wind electric field. Scientists have always assumed that the sun is a mighty chef that stirs sunspots, boils electrified gasses, then serves up the main course - violent solar weather in the form of a coronal mass ejection (CME) with a side of solar flare. In other words space weather on Earth has long been thought to be largely a measure of the Sun’s output. But mounting research reveals it is metered more by our own planet’s changing magnetic field than was known.
However, Sun’s secret recipe for stormy weather is ultimately helping scientists to understand turbulent solar activity and its effects on Earth. The new study shows that the Northern Lights, also called aurora, and other space weather near Earth are driven by the rate at which the Earth’s and Sun’s magnetic fields connect, or merge, and not just by the solar wind’s electric field.
Thanks to the formula that researchers have now developed that describes the merging rate of the magnetic field lines and accurately predicts 10 different types of near-Earth space weather activity, such as the aurora and magnetic disturbances. The researchers accurately predict that the merging occurs way out in space, at a spot between the Earth and Sun, roughly 40,000 miles above our planet’s surface.
The research further disabuses the notion that space is empty. The region between Earth and the Sun is full of energetic particles, most of which are sun generated. Temperatures of a few million degrees accelerate a stream of these particles, called the solar wind, to roughly one million mph.
Just like the debate over whether the chicken or the egg came first, solar researchers were long discussing whether flares cause CMEs or the reverse, or if they are more loosely associated. This break through research has surely marked an end to the debate and more excitingly it will allow us to predict when and where these extreme forces of magnetic flux will snap so that we can shut them down for safety reasons or get prepared to repair satellites.
Via: slashdot
