Details

Autor(en) / Beteiligte

• Zhang, Qing-He
• Zhang, Yong-Liang
• Wang, Chi
• Oksavik, Kjellmar
• Lyons, Larry R
• Lockwood, Michael
• Yang, Hui-Gen
• Tang, Bin-Bin
• Moen, Jøran Idar
• Xing, Zan-Yang
• Ma, Yu-Zhang
• Wang, Xiang-Yu
• Ning, Ya-Fei
• Xia, Li-Dong

Titel

A space hurricane over the Earth's polar ionosphere

Ist Teil von

• Nature communications, 2021-02, Vol.12 (1), p.1207-1207, Article 1207

Ort / Verlag

England: Nature Publishing Group

Erscheinungsjahr

2021

Link zum Volltext

Quelle

Alma/SFX Local Collection

Beschreibungen/Notizen

• In Earth's low atmosphere, hurricanes are destructive due to their great size, strong spiral winds with shears, and intense rain/precipitation. However, disturbances resembling hurricanes have not been detected in Earth's upper atmosphere. Here, we report a long-lasting space hurricane in the polar ionosphere and magnetosphere during low solar and otherwise low geomagnetic activity. This hurricane shows strong circular horizontal plasma flow with shears, a nearly zero-flow center, and a coincident cyclone-shaped aurora caused by strong electron precipitation associated with intense upward magnetic field-aligned currents. Near the center, precipitating electrons were substantially accelerated to ~10 keV. The hurricane imparted large energy and momentum deposition into the ionosphere despite otherwise extremely quiet conditions. The observations and simulations reveal that the space hurricane is generated by steady high-latitude lobe magnetic reconnection and current continuity during a several hour period of northward interplanetary magnetic field and very low solar wind density and speed.