A little over six years ago, a hurricane-like storm started brewing above us in space, and we didn’t know otherwise. Now, years later, scientists suggest they have obtained evidence of what they call the very first “space hurricane,” a phenomenon made up of plasma in Earth’s upper atmosphere.
The news comes via a study published in the latest issue of the Nature Communications log. There, say researchers, the space hurricane raged on Aug. 20, 2014. Compared to an Earth-based hurricane that rains water, the study says this cosmic storm is moving to our planet’s upper atmosphere.
The storm was over the North Pole and was generated by “steady high latitude magnetic reconnection and current continuity” for nearly eight hours in 2014. Due to its composition, it would not have been visible to the human eye. Better yet, the researchers involved in the study say similar storms could theoretically happen on any planet with a magnetic shield and plasma-filled atmosphere.
“Until now, it was uncertain that even space plasma hurricanes existed, so to prove this with such a striking observation is unbelievable,” Mike Lockwood of the University of Reading said in a statement. Lockwood served as one of the study’s co-authors, adding, “Tropical storms are associated with enormous amounts of energy, and these space hurricanes must be caused by an unusually large and rapid transfer of solar wind energy and charged particles in the upper atmosphere of the earth. “
“Plasma and magnetic fields in planets’ atmospheres exist throughout the universe, so the findings suggest that space hurricanes should be a widespread phenomenon,” Lockwood added.
The study points out that this particular “hurricane” is the first observed storm of its kind, it is quite possible they happened elsewhere in the cosmos.