Auroras adorn the sky above the poles of our planet during periods of increased solar activity, when it directs charged particles toward the Earth’s atmosphere. Previously, scientists believed that these magnificent events were proceeding in exactly the same way both in the north and in the south, but then, to their surprise, they discovered that this was not the case.
In a new study, a team of scientists led by Anders Ohma from the University of Bergen, Norway, reveals the reason for the differences in the nature of the northern and southern auroras – according to the researchers, the reason lies in the asymmetry of the Earth’s magnetic tail. However, to their surprise, the researchers found that their alleged reason for the asymmetry of the magnetic tail, by contrast, contributed to the symmetrization of this structure.
The magnetic tail is formed as a result of the interaction of the solar wind, which carries with it the solar magnetic field, with the Earth’s magnetosphere and is located on the leeward side of our planet. At night in the magnetic tail near the poles of the Earth one can see auroras – the glow of the atmosphere, which occurs when the solar wind flows through the gas envelope of our planet, with atmospheric gases.
The initial assumption in the study of Ohms was that the asymmetry in the magnetic tail, which determines the difference in the nature of the northern and southern auroras, is formed by events called the reconnection of magnetic lines. However, as a result of the analysis, which included observations of the northern and southern auroras in the infrared range and comparing them with data on reconnection of magnetic lines in the magnetic tail of the Earth, the researchers found that the situation is reversed – the asymmetry of the magnetic tail is caused by a mismatch between the directions of the solar and terrestrial magnetic fields, and reconnection of magnetic lines leads to symmetrization of the magnetic tail of our planet.
The reason of the differences between the northern and southern auroras
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