Quakes,flares and freezes
Over 21,000 Dead From Quake In Turkey – Six M-Flares Last 24 Hours – Deadly European Freeze (15 min)
Sun & Earth | Feb.9.2023
From: https://spaceweather.com/
INCREASING CHANCE OF FLARES: The odds of a strong solar flare today have more than doubled in response to a sudden profusion of large sunspots. NOAA forecasters say there is a 55% chance of M-class flares and a 15% of X-flares. The most likely source is Earth-facing sunspot AR3213, which has an unstable ‘delta-class’ magnetic field.
Flares pic.twitter.com/mtvSN4AM8Y
— Elijah (@CherithElijah) February 10, 2023
Above: The sun is crackling with M-class solar flares.
STRANGE TIDES IN THE PLASMASPHERE: Tides are one of the oldest phenomena known to physics. Ocean waters rise and fall like clockwork in response to the gravitational pull of the sun and Moon. There’s nothing surprising about tides.
Yet, researchers studying tides have just found a big surprise. There are tides in Earth’s plasmasphere, and they are very strange. The discovery was published in the Jan 26th edition of Nature Physics.
The plasmasphere is a lopsided donut of cold plasma inside Earth’s magnetic field. It is created by leakage from the top of Earth’s atmosphere (the ionosphere). The outer surface of the plasmasphere is called “the plasmapause”–and that is where the tides have been found.
“We can think of the plasmapause as the surface of a ‘plasma ocean’ surrounding Earth,” says one of the lead authors Quanqi Shi of Shandong University. “Using a 40-year database of satellite observations, we report the first identification of lunar tides on the surface of this plasma ocean.”
It is not surprising that Moon’s gravity would stretch and modulate the shape of the plasmasphere. After all, the plasmasphere is made of matter, and matter responds to gravity. But the response is not what the researchers expected.
Shi explains: “Interestingly, the lunar plasmaspheric tide forms a few percent bulge that is offset 90 degrees ahead of the Earth-Moon axis, which is significantly different from the high tide in Earth’s liquid oceans.” This inexplicable offset was verified by nearly 36,000 plasmapause crossings by various spacecraft over almost four solar cycles from 1977 to 2015.
— Elijah (@CherithElijah) February 10, 2023
What’s going on? The researchers aren’t certain, but they believe gravity and electromagnetism may have joined forces to produce a new kind of tidal effect.
Space physicists have long known that the Moon’s gravity affects winds in Earth’s ionized upper atmosphere. This means the Moon can actually modify electrical currents in the ionosphere, altering electromagnetic fields. The research team looked at data from NASA’s Van Allen Probes and found that, indeed, electric fields reaching up into the plasmasphere appear to be modulated by lunar tides. Computer models suggest that these fields can shift the bulge to a 90 degree offset position and explain its daily and monthly variations.
“Our discovery of this plasma tidal effect may indicate a fundamental interaction mechanism in the Earth-Moon system that has not been previously considered,” says Shi. “Understanding this phenomenon could lead to better forecasts of space weather and improved safety for spacecraft and satellites.”
For more information about these strange tides, please read the team’s original research.