THEMIS space probes discovered that the Northern lights are seen when electrical tornadoes, rotating faster than a million miles an hour, hover about above the earth. The energy spins down to the earth's ionosphere where the tornadoes become unstable, and interact with the earth 's magnetic field. Professor Karl-Heinz Glassmeier, director of the Institute for Geophysics and Extraterrestrial Physics in Braunschweig, Germany, explains, “ When these space tornadoes reach the upper atmosphere their enormous energy heats the air so strongly it starts glowing. That is what generates the aurorae. ” upAurora near Abisko, Sweden “ It is here that all the energy is released, forming the aurorae. What we see as beautiful lights and colors are actually the product of a violent electrical storm in space. While these electrical discharges do not cause any direct harm to humans, they can damage man-made structures such as power transformers and communications systems, ” said Andreas Keiling, a physicist at the University of California at Berkeley. upView of the aurora australis (southern lights) Time History of Events and Macroscale Interactions during Substorms (THEMIS) are five probes launched by NASA in February 2007, which orbited Earth recording the volume and electrical current which was higher than 100,000 amperes. Related stories
THEMIS space probes discovered that the Northern lights are seen when electrical tornadoes, rotating faster than a million miles an hour, hover about above the earth. The energy spins down to the earth's ionosphere where the tornadoes become unstable, and interact with the Earth 's magnetic field. Professor Karl-Heinz Glassmeier, director of the Institute for Geophysics and Extraterrestrial Physics in Braunschweig, Germany, explains, " When these space tornadoes reach the upper atmosphere their enormous energy heats the air so strongly it starts glowing. That is what generates the aurorae. " upAurora near Abisko, Sweden " It is here that all the energy is released, forming the aurorae. What we see as beautiful lights and colors are actually the product of a violent electrical storm in space. While these electrical discharges do not cause any direct harm to humans, they can damage man-made structures such as power transformers and communications systems, " said Andreas Keiling, a physicist at the University of California at Berkeley. upView of the aurora australis (southern lights) Time History of Events and Macroscale Interactions during Substorms (THEMIS) are five probes launched by NASA in February 2007, which orbited Earth recording the volume and electrical current which was higher than 100,000 amperes. Related news
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