An article published in the journal Nature reviews the discovery by a group of scientists of a new electric field of the Earth, which is added to the already known ones: the magnetic and the gravitational field.

The announcement, after 60 years of knowing only two fields of the blue planet, comes to expand the effect of this electric field on the dynamics of the atmosphere.

According to the article, “the discovery was made thanks to NASA’s Endurance suborbital rocket, which was launched from Svalbard, a Norwegian archipelago near the North Pole. “This place is one of the few in the world where precise measurements can be made in the region of the polar wind, a stream of particles that flows from the Earth’s atmosphere into space.”

This polar wind, which was first detected in the 1960s, “contained particles that moved at supersonic speeds, but without having been heated, which baffled scientists.”

After hard work by the team since 2016, led by Glyn Collinson from NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, the launch of Endurance was achieved on May 11, 2022, reaching an altitude of 768 kilometers. In that position, he began collecting critical data, detecting “a change in electrical potential of just 0.55 volts at an altitude of 518 kilometers.”

Although the quantity is minimal, it allowed us to demonstrate “that the electric field is responsible for the impulse of hydrogen ions in the polar wind, allowing them to escape into space.”

The results have a relevance that marks a milestone in the topic, since “it not only solves the enigma of the polar wind, but also has important implications for planetary physics. The electric field, known as the ambipolar field, acts as a kind of “conveyor belt” that lifts the atmosphere into space.

On the other hand, scientists have indicated that the discovery has a “significant impact on the ionosphere, a crucial layer of the Earth’s atmosphere, increasing its density at higher altitudes than previously estimated.”

Without a doubt, the new electric field of the Earth opens new perspectives in planetary exploration.

M.Pino

Source: computerhoy

(Reference image source: Unsplash+, in collaboration with Hartono Creative Studio)

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