Aug 31, 2024 · A rocket team reports the first successful detection of Earth’s ambipolar electric field: a weak, planet-wide electric field as fundamental as Earth’s gravity and magnetic fields. First hypothesized more than 60 years ago, the ambipolar electric field is a key driver of the “polar wind,” a steady outflow of charged particles into space ...

Aug 28, 2024 · The sparkling blue glow in this animation represents Earth’s newly discovered third fundamental global field: the ambipolar electric field. This field makes the atmosphere taller by lifting and separating the particles of the ionosphere, like blowing up a balloon.

Earth's magnetic field, also known as the geomagnetic field, is the magnetic field that extends from Earth's interior out into space, where it interacts with the solar wind, a stream of charged particles emanating from the Sun.

Aug 28, 2024 · An international team of scientists has successfully measured a planet-wide electric field thought to be as fundamental to Earth as its gravity and magnetic fields. Known as the ambipolar electric field, scientists first hypothesized over 60 years ago that it drove atmospheric escape above Earth’s North and South Poles.

Sep 2, 2024 · NASA scientists have discovered a third global energy field around Earth. Known as the ambipolar electric field, this force drives charged particles into space above the poles and joins the...

So, our rocket has discovered and finally measured number three: it's called the ambipolar field and it's an agent of chaos. It counters gravity, and it strips particles off into space. Whenever spacecraft have flown over the poles of the Earth, they’ve felt this supersonic wind of particles – called the polar wind – flowing out into space.

Aug 28, 2024 · The ambipolar field, as a fundamental energy field of our planet alongside gravity and magnetism, may have continuously shaped the evolution of our atmosphere in ways we can now begin to explore. Because it’s created by the internal dynamics of an atmosphere, similar electric fields are expected to exist on other planets, including Venus and ...

Aug 3, 2021 · Earth’s magnetic field acts like a protective shield around the planet, repelling and trapping charged particles from the Sun. But over South America and the southern Atlantic Ocean, an unusually weak spot in the field – called the South Atlantic Anomaly, or SAA – allows these particles to dip closer to the surface than normal.

Aug 30, 2024 · An international team of scientists at NASA and other institutions say they've discovered a weak, planet-wide electric field wrapping the Earth that was first hypothesized by researchers...

Oct 18, 2024 · While the field is invisible and relatively weak, it plays a major part in the evolution of the Earth’s atmosphere and how it continues to support life. The discovery of this ambipolar field...