The first direct images ever made of a solar storm as it engulfs Earth have also vindicated astronauts who said they'd seen colorful sky lights at dubiously high altitudes. The study shows that auroras reach far higher into the atmosphere than expected, though scientists are still puzzled over how it is possible. The research, which detected solar electrons approaching Earth's protective magnetic field, will also help space weather forecasters better predict how a tempest from the Sun might effect satellites and communication systems.Auroras are atmospheric light displays generated by space weather. They are born above Earth's polar regions and are routinely enjoyed from the surface by people at far northern or southern latitudes. Auroras typically occur at about 60 miles up (100 kilometers), when charged storm particles tickle air molecules.

Scientists had a hard time believing astronauts who said they'd seen aurora that appeared to soar higher than the International Space Station, which orbits about 250 miles (400 kilometers) above the surface of the planet. Experts didn't figure there were enough molecules up there to do the trick.

But now the fleeting, ultra-high events have been imaged at more than 500 miles (800 kilometers) above the planet with a new Air Force satellite called the Solar Mass Ejection Imager.

"It's a mystery," Bernard Jackson, a solar physicist at the University of California, San Diego, said of the soaring auroras. "This is far higher than anyone had ever expected. It may be that nitrogen from the ionosphere is ejected into the higher altitudes during a coronal mass ejection."

A coronal mass ejection (CME) is a cloud of hot gas sometimes shot from the Sun during a solar flare. CMEs expand as they head through space. Upon reaching Earth anywhere from 18 hours to several days later, they fuel aurora and sometimes knock out satellites and threaten power grids on the surface.


View: Full Article | Source: space.com