Massive solar wind disturbance caused Earth’s magnetosphere to fly without its usual tail

Like a supersonic jet being blasted with high-speed winds, Earth is consistently being bombarded by a stream of charged particles from the sun often called solar wind.

Identical to wind round a jet or water round a ship, these solar wind streams curve round Earth’s magnetic discipline, or magnetosphere, forming on the sunward aspect of the magnetosphere a entrance known as a bow shock and stretching it right into a wind sock form with a long tail on the nightside.

Dramatic adjustments to the solar wind alter the construction and dynamics of the magnetosphere. An instance of such adjustments offers a glimpse into the conduct of different our bodies in space, similar to Jupiter’s moons and extrasolar planets.

In an article published in Geophysical Analysis Letters, Li‐Jen Chen and colleagues report unprecedented observations of a uncommon phenomenon created throughout a coronal mass ejection (CME).

CMEs sometimes journey quicker than the Alfvén pace, the pace at which vibrating magnetic field lines transfer by means of magnetized plasma, which may range with the plasma surroundings. A CME in 2023 disrupted the conventional configuration of Earth’s magnetosphere for about two hours. The researchers analyzed observations from NASA’s Magnetospheric Multiscale Mission (MMS) to study what occurred.

On 24 April 2023, the MMS spacecraft noticed that although the streaming pace of the solar wind was quick, the Alfvén pace in the course of the robust CME was even quicker. Sometimes, solar wind travels quicker than Alfvén pace. This anomaly precipitated Earth’s bow shock to quickly disappear, permitting the plasma and magnetic discipline from the sun to work together straight with the magnetosphere.

Earth’s wind sock tail was changed by constructions known as Alfvén wings that linked Earth’s magnetosphere to the just lately erupted area of the sun. This connection acted as a freeway transporting plasma between the magnetosphere and the sun.

The distinctive CME occasion supplied new insights into how Alfvén wings type and evolve, the authors write. An identical course of might happen round different magnetically energetic our bodies in our solar system and universe, and the researchers’ observations recommend the formation of aurorae on Jupiter’s moon Ganymede can also be attributable to Alfvén wings. The authors recommend future work might search for related Alfvén wing aurorae occurring on Earth.

This story is republished courtesy of Eos, hosted by the American Geophysical Union. Learn the unique story here.