Researchers from the United States and Japan, led by Keisuke Hosokawa at the University of Electro-Communications in Tokyo, discovered the reason behind the rare 'polar rain' aurora after studying it for two years using data from satellites and ground-based observations.
In January 2022, a never-before-seen from-the-ground phenomenon was observed across the Arctic sky in Longyearbyen, Svalbard, Norway: a faint, featureless, and uniform green aurora spanning 4,000 miles.
According to the researchers, the gigantic, uniform polar aurora was caused by an intense flux of electrons from the Sun, rather than the typical solar wind, during a period of extremely low solar wind density. This allowed direct and intense electron flow from the Sun to Earth's polar cap, resulting in the exceptionally bright aurora. The charged particles became trapped in Earth's magnetic field, and the electrons streamed down the magnetic field lines, colliding with molecules in the atmosphere, creating a green glow.
The decrease in solar wind pressure allowed electrons to reach Earth without being scattered by regular polar wind particles, as the opened magnetic field lines connected with Earth's magnetic field above the North Pole, creating the smooth appearance of the January 2022 aurora.
Hosokawa's team compared the naked-eye view of the 'polar rain' aurora with the satellite SSUSI's view.
Sources: Mashable, New York Post, Yahoo, ZME Science, Jagran Josh, Indy100, Moneycontrol, UNILAD, Esakal, Daily Galaxy, Inspire More, Outlook India, NewsBytes, NewsX, WION, IFLScience, Space.com, France 24, Mirror, GB News
This article was written in collaboration with Generative AI news company Alchemiq.
