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Hurricane season 2020 ends after record 30 named storms
After six months and 30 storms, the most active Atlantic hurricane season on record officially ended on November 30.
USA TODAY
- Until now, it was uncertain that space hurricanes even existed.
- The space hurricane spotted by the research team in the Earth’s ionosphere was spinning counterclockwise.
- The results suggest that space hurricanes are likely to be a widespread phenomenon.
And now we have to worry about space hurricanes.
For the first time, scientists have spotted what they call a “space hurricane” circling over the North Pole, according to a new study. According to the study, the swirling plasma mass about 600 miles wide was located several hundred miles above the North Pole, and “rained” electrons instead of water.
Until now, it was uncertain whether space hurricanes even existed, “so to prove it with such a vivid sighting is incredible,” said study co-author Mike Lockwood, a space scientist at the University of Reading in the UK, in a statement.
The observations, made by satellites in August 2014, were only discovered during retrospective analyzes carried out by scientists at Shandong University in China.
The authors say more study is needed, especially because this type of geomagnetic activity can disrupt GPS satellites.
The space hurricane spotted by the research team in the Earth’s ionosphere rotated counterclockwise (like hurricanes in the northern hemisphere do), had multiple spiral arms, and lasted nearly eight hours before gradually collapsing.
In many ways, this space hurricane resembles the hurricanes we experience here in Earth’s lower atmosphere.
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Tropical storms and hurricanes occur in the Earth’s lower atmosphere over warm bodies of water such as oceans and gulfs. As warm, humid air rises, it creates an area of low pressure near the surface that sucks in the surrounding air, causing extremely strong winds and creating clouds that lead to heavy rain.
“Tropical storms are associated with enormous amounts of energy, and these space hurricanes must be created by an unusually large and rapid transfer of solar wind energy and charged particles into Earth’s upper atmosphere,” Lockwood said. .
Hurricanes like the ones we have here on Earth have also been seen in the lower atmospheres of Mars, Jupiter and Saturn, while huge solar tornadoes have been seen in the sun’s atmosphere, the University of Reading said in a statement. However, the existence of space hurricanes in the upper atmosphere of the planets had not been detected before.
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“Plasma and magnetic fields in the atmosphere of planets exist throughout the universe, so the results suggest that space hurricanes are likely to be a widespread phenomenon,” Lockwood said.
Additionally, according to the study, the fact that the space hurricane occurred during a period of low geomagnetic activity suggests that they may be more common in our solar system and beyond. “This highlights the importance of better monitoring of space weather, which can disrupt GPS systems,” the University of Reading said in a statement.
The results were published in the UK peer-reviewed journal Nature Communications.
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