An enormous swirling “space hurricane” floated high above the Earth for about 8 hours before dissipating, a new study contends.
Scientists, who released the study last week, said it was the first time such a phenomenon has been observed and said that instead of pouring water, the space hurricane was “raining electrons.” The storm occurred in 2014 and was captured by satellites, although its existence was only uncovered during recent retrospective analysis by scientists.
A “space hurricane” was detected swirling over the North Pole, although it was made of plasma rather than water: https://t.co/i7a77Pvrvd
— AccuWeatherAstronomy (@AccuAstronomy) March 4, 2021
Professor Mike Lockwood, space scientist at the University of Reading, said the discovery was “incredible.”
“Until now, it was uncertain that space plasma hurricanes even existed. So to prove this with such a striking observation is incredible,” he said. “Tropical storms are associated with huge amounts of energy, and these space hurricanes must be created by unusually large and rapid transfer of solar wind energy and charged particles into the Earth’s upper atmosphere.”
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“Plasma and magnetic fields in the atmosphere of planets exist throughout the universe, so the findings suggest space hurricanes should be a widespread phenomena,” Lockwood added.
The scientists said the 2014 space hurricane was spinning in a counterclockwise rotation and had multiple spiral arms.
“The fact the hurricane occurred during a period of low geomagnetic activity suggests they could be more relatively common within our solar system and beyond. This highlights the importance of improved monitoring of space weather, which can disrupt GPS systems,” the University of Reading said in a Monday news release.
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While hurricanes are often thought to be a phenomenon only contained to Earth, there are also examples of large storms in the atmospheres of other planets such as Jupiter, Saturn, and Mars.
