On the dark side of the Earth, space is riddled with giant plasma tornadoes that power shimmering auroras, new observations reveal.
Researchers operating the five spacecraft of NASA's THEMIS mission reported the discovery today at the European Geosciences Union meeting in Vienna, Austria.
They were measuring how the solar wind, a flow of charged particles from the sun, interacts with Earth's magnetic field.
On the Earth's dark side, the solar wind stretches out the field, forming a region known as the magnetotail. The magnetotail is like a rubber band; when it is stretched too far, "eventually it snaps and releases the energy", says team member Andreas Keiling of the University of California, Berkeley.
Researchers operating the five spacecraft of NASA's THEMIS mission reported the discovery today at the European Geosciences Union meeting in Vienna, Austria.
They were measuring how the solar wind, a flow of charged particles from the sun, interacts with Earth's magnetic field.
On the Earth's dark side, the solar wind stretches out the field, forming a region known as the magnetotail. The magnetotail is like a rubber band; when it is stretched too far, "eventually it snaps and releases the energy", says team member Andreas Keiling of the University of California, Berkeley.
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