New Near Earth Space Weather Cause Found

http://www.playfuls.com/news_003314_New_Near_Earth_Space_Weather_Cause_Found.html

New Near Earth Space Weather Cause Found
06:09 PM, December 12th 2006
by News Staff

U.S. researchers have identified the driver for near Earth space weather -- and it is not the solar wind's electrical field as has been thought.

Scientists at Johns Hopkins University's Applied Physics Laboratory in Laurel, Md., and the Air Force Research Laboratory in Massachusetts, say the aurora and other near-Earth space weather are driven by the rate at which the Earth's and sun's magnetic fields connect, or merge.

The researchers say that merging occurs between the Earth and sun, approximately 40,000 miles above the planet's surface and appears fundamental to the circulation of particles and magnetic fields throughout near-Earth space.

Led by Patrick Newell of APL, the scientists developed a formula describing the merging rate of the magnetic field lines. It predicts 10 different types of near-Earth space weather activity, such as the aurora and magnetic disturbances.

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slashdot: http://science.slashdot.org/science/06/12/11/1416213.shtml

Official press release: http://www.jhu.edu/~gazette/2006/11dec06/11driver.html