14 Aug 2014 ~ Space Plasma Hurricane ~ Whirling Plasma 1000km Or 600 Miles Wide

Space hurricane of plasma

spotted above Earth’s North Pole

This large, rotating pattern of plasma roiled the ionosphere
— similar to its surface counterparts.
By Mark Zastrow | Published: Friday, March 19, 2021



Plasma and the spiral auroral arms of a space hurricane
twirl high Earth's polar region in this artist’s concept.
Qing-He Zhang, Shandong University

The morning of August 20, 2014 was a quiet one in Earth’s ionosphere.

The solar wind was calm and slack, and the orientation
of the Sun’s magnetic field was stable,
not conducive to producing much space weather.

But then, hundreds of miles above the North Pole,
the ionosphere suddenly whipped itself into a fury,
spawning a massive space hurricane
some 600 miles (1,000 kilometers) wide
— a cyclone of plasma swirling above Earth for eight hours.

The phenomenon was captured in real-time
by U.S. military weather satellites.

But it was only recently uncovered in archival data
by a team led by researchers at Shandong University in China.

“Until now, it was uncertain that space plasma hurricanes even existed,
so to prove this with such a striking observation is incredible,”
said co-author Mike Lockwood of the University of Reading in a press release.
More than a metaphor

The moniker “space hurricane” isn’t just a catchy nickname — the physics of how it formed are actually analogous to how “normal” hurricanes gather and focus energy in the lower atmosphere. Like their atmospheric counterparts, this space storm was instigated by an area of low pressure that gave rise to rapid convection.
On Earth, that convective process occurs from below: heat from warm ocean waters drives evaporation and rising air, dumping energy into the atmosphere that gets focused by inrushing wind.
In space, though, that convective energy comes from above — thanks to the magnetic fields of the Earth and Sun interacting and shearing across one another.
The Sun’s magnetic field has a wavy pattern as it stretches out into the solar system, meaning it can be aligned northward or southward depending on where Earth sits in it. On that August day in 2014, the region of the Sun’s magnetic field around Earth happened to be aligned northward. That means it doesn’t neatly connect to Earth’s magnetic field, which is also aligned northward — the field lines tend to repel each other, typically leading to calm space weather conditions. But these conditions sometimes give rise to a spot of aurora near the poles, where electrons rain downward and electric current flows up, just like the convection at the heart of a hurricane.

Space hurricane of whirling plasma spotted above Earth’s North Pole | Astronomy.com
https://astronomy.com/news/2021/03/...2cX1x5dyhG6cYJCbvGKQSjYRnm0gLSYefLStlBj89J7C8