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This illustration visualizes the shape of the space hurricane observed in 2014 satellite data.
Qing-He Zhang / Shandong University
Someone is calling the SyFy channel. We’re going to need a whole series of Spacenado films.
This week, a team of researchers unveiled the results of a study highlighting the very first sighting of a space hurricane in our planet’s upper atmosphere. Unlike the infamous cyclones that wreak havoc closer to the Earth’s surface, the space hurricane was made up of swirling plasma and “plus” electrons.
“Until now, it was uncertain whether space plasma hurricanes even existed, so to prove it with such a vivid sighting is incredible,” University of Reading space scientist Mike Lockwood said Monday. Lockwood is the co-author of an article on the phenomenon published in the journal Nature Communications in late February.
Scientists discovered the event after reanalyzing data collected by satellites in August 2014. Researchers from Shandong University in China led the team that made the discovery. The data showed a mass of plasma 620 miles wide (1,000 kilometers) swirling over the North Pole. He had spiral arms and lasted almost eight hours.
Plasma is a hot field of study. NASA, which has investigated space plasma tornadoes, describes space plasma as “charged particles, like electrons and ions.” These particles travel through space and can cause problems for satellites and astronauts. The space agency was also behind a 2019 article on “plasma tsunamis” on the sun.
Lockwood pointed to “an unusually large and rapid transfer of solar wind energy and charged particles into Earth’s upper atmosphere” as what fueled the space hurricane. The existence of at least one known space hurricane under these circumstances suggests that they could be common in the atmospheres of other planets.
Understanding Earth’s own space hurricane could help scientists better understand space weather and its impact on systems we rely on, like GPS. As a bonus, it sounds cool to say “space hurricane”.
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