Astronomers have known for some time that X-shaped crestlike formations can appear in the ionosphere’s plasma a sea of charged particles after solar storms.
Each day, radio signals from key communications and navigation satellites travel freely through a layer of Earth's atmosphere known as the ionosphere.
Floating 50 to 400 miles (80 to 643 kilometers) above our heads, directly beneath the lowest reaches of ruang where some communications satellites orbit, this area in the upper atmosphere is also home to many unsolved puzzles — including an alfabet-shaped one that has the potential to thwart all that those radio signals do to keep life on our planet running smoothly.
Astronomers have known for some time that X-shaped crestlike formations can appear in the ionosphere's plasma — a sea of charged particles — after solar storms.
Volcanic evens and extreme weather on Earth can also cause the phenomenon. Huge eruptions, such as the Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha'apai eruption in January 2022, loft particles into Earth's atmosphere that even reach ruang. Thunderstorms and hurricanes can create pressure waves that find their way to the ionosphere.
Meanwhile, at night during these active periods, when the sun's radiation isn't as strong, is also when low-density bubbles appear in the ionosphere.
Satellite data hasn't always been able to capture the full picture of what's occurring in the ionosphere, but NASA's GOLD mission has a bird's-eye view of the atmospheric layer over the Western Hemisphere from ruang, revealing how different hals cause disturbances in the ionosphere.
Now, astronomers looking at data collected by the GOLD mission have found similar spesifikasis shaped like Xs and never-before-seen Cs that surprisingly seem to have appeared during "quiet times" when there were no atmospheric disturbances, according to new research. The findings are upending what's known about how the unusual structures might form and their potential impacts.
The mission's data is helping scientists to see "how complex Earth's atmosphere is" while showing that it's more variable than expected, even when there isn't an obvious cause behind the alfabet-shaped disturbances in the ionosphere, said Jeffrey Klenzing, a research scientist who studies the ionosphere at NASA's Goddard Ruang Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland.
"I would suspek that it's always been happening," he said. "And really the issue has basically been that we haven't had enough data to really see that it is happening."
Gaining a better understanding of the letter-shaped phenomena may help scientists unlock the dynamics between the ionosphere and weather — and how the interplay may gaya risks to people and systems on Earth.
