NASA scientists have discovered an electric field that surrounds Earth's atmosphere that is as “fundamental” as gravity and may offer clues about the possibility of life on other planets.
A team of NASA scientists has detected the first bipolar electric field on an orbiting rocket 150 miles above Earth's atmosphere. Space agencies.
According to NASA, the bipolar electric field is “a weak, planet-wide electric field that is as fundamental as Earth's gravity and magnetic field,” lifting the sky and causing polar winds.
Its existence has been theorized for 60 years, but this mission confirmed it for the first time, the agency said in its findings published in the journal Wednesday. Nature.
This will allow scientists to learn more about life on Earth, and possibly beyond.
“Understanding the complex behavior and evolution of Earth's atmosphere not only unlocks clues about Earth's history, but also unlocks the mysteries of other planets and helps determine which ones may be habitable for life,” NASA said.
This major scientific breakthrough confirmed that there are three electric fields around the Earth: gravity, a magnetic field that protects the Earth from cosmic radiation, and a bipolar electric field.
National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA)
According to NASA, electric fields were first theorized by scientists more than 60 years ago, when spacecraft flying over the Earth's poles began detecting “streams of particles streaming from the atmosphere into space.”
“Something must be attracting these particles from the atmosphere.” Glyn Collinson said:He is the principal investigator for durability research at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center.
However, technological limitations have prevented scientists from confirming the theory.
After decades of scientists puzzling over this mystery, in 2016 Collinson and his team invented a new instrument that they thought could measure Earth's bipolar magnetic field: a suborbital rocket they called Endurance.
“There must be some unseen force causing this spill that we haven't been able to measure until now because we didn't have the technology,” Collinson explained.
They launched a rocket into the bipolar electric field at Ny-Ålesund, Svalbard, Norway, just a few hundred miles from the North Pole.
“Svalbard is the only rocket launch site in the world that can fly through polar winds and make the measurements we need,” said study co-author Susie Ingber, an astrophysicist at the University of Leicester.
Endurance, named after the ship that took Ernest Shackleton to the Antarctic in 1914, was launched on May 11, 2022, and reached an altitude of 477.23 miles.
This magnetic field was difficult to detect because it only produced 0.55 volts.
“Half a volt is pretty meaningless — it's about the strength of a watch battery,” Collinson said, “but it's just right for describing polar winds.”
But this voltage is “just right to account for polar winds,” Collinson said.
“Despite being weak, it's extremely important, as it defies gravity and holds up the sky,” Collinson explained.
The team found that hydrogen ions, the main particles in the polar wind, are subjected to an outward force from this field that is an astounding 10.6 times stronger than gravity.
“That's more than enough to counter gravity, and in fact to launch it into space at supersonic speeds,” said Alex Grosser, Endurance project scientist at NASA's Goddard Space Center and co-author of the paper.
Collinson explained that the bipolar electric field was a “conveyor belt that lifted the atmosphere out into space” and, along with gravity and the magnetic field, may have helped shape the evolution of the atmosphere.
This breakthrough sheds new light on the role of the ionosphere in maintaining atmospheric density at different altitudes.
National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA)
“This magnetic field is crucial for understanding how the Earth works. It has been there since the beginning, along with gravity and magnetism, sending particles floating through space and extending into the sky from the very beginning,” said the lead researcher.
Collinson and his team believe that any planet with an atmosphere is likely to have a bipolar magnetic field.
“Any planet with an atmosphere should have a bipolar magnetic field,” Collinson explains, “and now that we've finally measured it, we can start to learn how it has affected our planet and other planets over time.”
