In December 2022, a remarkably even band of aurora stretched over the entire Arctic zone of the Earth. Recently, scientists were able to explain how it occurred.
Amazing aurora
An international group of scientists associated with various scientific institutions in Japan and the United States published a paper that solved a mystery that interested scientists for two years. We are talking about an unusually long and flat band of aurora that was recorded over the northern regions of Europe in December 2022.
Then an unusual phenomenon in the sky was recorded by a ground camera located in Norway. Usually the aurora bands are very curved and have many cogs. But here we are talking about an extremely flat band stretching for 4000 km across the entire polar cap.
For two years scientists could not explain what it was. And now, finally, a publication with a clue has appeared in the journal Science Advances. It is based on an analysis of satellite data and ground observations made in 2022.
What was that?
Not all effects that are generated by the meeting of charged particles flying from the Sun with the atmosphere of our planet are visible to the naked eye. In particular, these include polar rain aurorae. In fact, these are also ion streams arising in the upper atmosphere. But they are recorded by special equipment, not by the human eye.
However, data from observation satellites, collected during the phenomenon itself, confirmed that this was exactly this kind of aurora. It’s just that this time it turned out to be visible for some reason. And the reasons for this have already been discovered by researchers.
In their opinion, it was all about the anomalously low and uniform flux of charged particles that occurred in December 2022. Then it was only up to 0.5 cm-3, an absolute record for the entire time of observations.
It is also noted that public scientists have been of great help in studying the aurora — they, for example, helped unravel the source of the purple light that appeared over the Canadian sky in 2016.
According to phys.org
