NASA says mysterious dancing blue lights spotted on the Arctic were caused by steam tests, NOT aliens

Astronomers from northern Norway took advantage of an unexpected light show when a new NASA test flooded the sky with blue and orange-colored gas touches.

The projectors, which resembled an "extraterrestrial attack" for some, were actually part of an ongoing NASA experiment called the Auroral Zone Flare Up Experiment (AZURE).

As part of its mission, NASA announced the launch of the AZURE test rocket, the first of eight such launches, to study the characteristics of solar winds.

The eye-catching spotlights were created by releasing into the atmosphere two harmless gases, trimethylaluminum and a mixture of barium and strontium, so that researchers could study the particle trajectories in the ionosphere of the Earth, says The NASA.

Scroll for the video

The captures of the show were captured via a webcam managed by Lights Over Lapland, which allows visitors to see Aurora through guided tours.

According to scientists, the experience will also help unlock the forces behind one of the most captivating phenomena of nature, the Northern Lights.

Aurora borealis – the green, blue and violet light shows observed in the skies of regions close to the Earth's poles – are created by solar winds interacting with the planet's magnetic field.

When the particles of the two atmospheric regions collide and their respective particles are charged, the trajectories are altered, forcing the electrons and protons to descend into the atmosphere, at which point humans can observe them as streaks. of colored light.

The gases released by NASA during their steam test were subjected to a similar process.

Scientists have inferred the cause of the aurora borealis, but they have not yet observed the behavior and behavior of solar winds and the ionosphere that push them beyond computer-generated models.

No need to run for coverage at the moment. The extraterrestrial-like lights in the skies over Norway are the result of a test conducted by NASA to study the solar winds and the upper atmosphere of the Earth. www.lightsoverlapland.com

It's there that Azure enters the scene.

Projects such as the one presented by star observers this month will help scientists get accurate measurements of the horizontal and vertical pathways of particles in the ionosphere over a range of altitudes and at better to make understood the aurora created.

Scientists, who mainly rely on computer-generated models, have not yet followed the solar winds in practice.

In addition to creating beautiful light effects, the interactions between the solar winds and the Earth's magnetic field are also essential to create the conditions for much of the life of our planet.

Solar winds, waves of particles emitted by the sun, are subjected to radiation that, if projected on the surface of the Earth, would seriously damage all the inhabitants of our planet.

Instead, however, the particles of the sun are diverted from the planet by the Earth's magnetic field, called the magnetosphere.

NASA says its experiments will also help to give a more complete picture of what happens when particles from the solar winds are projected into our atmosphere and exactly where they are going.

HOW IS SOLAR WIND FORMED?

The sun and its atmosphere consist of plasma – a mixture of positively and negatively charged particles that have separated at extremely high temperatures, which propagate and propagate along magnetic field lines.

The materials of the corona spread in space, filling the solar system with the solar wind.

But scientists discovered that when the plasma moved away from the sun, things changed.

Views of the solar wind from the NASA STEREO spacecraft (left) and after computer processing (right). Scientists used an algorithm to mitigate the appearance of bright stars and dust in low solar wind images

The sun begins to lose magnetic control, forming the boundary that defines the outer crown – the very edge of the sun.

The dissolution of the rays is similar to the way the water gushes from a water gun.

First, the water is a smooth, unified stream, but eventually it breaks down into droplets, then into smaller drops, and finally into a fine mist.

A recent Nasa study captured the plasma at the same stage where a stream of water gradually breaks up into droplets.

If charged particles from the solar wind reach the magnetic field of the Earth, this can pose problems for satellites and communication equipment.