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Scientists Detect Invisible Electric Field Around Earth For First Time
Saturday August 31, 2024. 09:00 AM , from Slashdot
This ambipolar field would be incredibly weak, which is why Collinson and his team designed instrumentation to detect it. The Endurance mission, carrying this experiment, was launched in May 2022, reaching an altitude of 768.03 kilometers (477.23 miles) before falling back to Earth with its precious, hard-won data. And it succeeded. It measured a change in electric potential of just 0.55 volts -- but that was all that was needed. 'A half a volt is almost nothing -- it's only about as strong as a watch battery,' Collinson says. 'But that's just the right amount to explain the polar wind.' That amount of charge is enough to tug on hydrogen ions with 10.6 times the strength of gravity, launching them into space at the supersonic speeds measured over Earth's poles. Oxygen ions, which are heavier than hydrogen ions, are also lofted higher, increasing the density of the ionosphere at high altitudes by 271 percent, compared to what its density would be without the ambipolar field. The findings have been published in the journal Nature. Read more of this story at Slashdot.
https://news.slashdot.org/story/24/08/31/0053205/scientists-detect-invisible-electric-field-around-e...
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