Streaks in aurora found to map features in earth's radiation environment
A special kind of streaked aurora has been found to track disturbances in near-Earth space from the ground. Known as structured diffuse aurora, it was recently discovered, with the help of NASA spacecraft and instruments, that these faint lights in the night sky can map the edges of the Van Allen radiation belts鈥攈azardous concentric bands of charged particles encircling Earth.
When the Van Allen belts undulate in shape and size鈥攚hich they do in response to incoming radiation from the Sun as well as changes from Earth below鈥攖hey can envelop satellites in unexpected radiation. The new discovery will help us better track the edges of the belts鈥攁nd the more we know about how the belts are changing, the more we can mitigate such effects.
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Schematic of the Van Allen belts' structure, shows the region of the structured diffuse aurora and the outer edge of the Van Allen belts that it maps. Credit: NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center/ Historic image of Van Allen Belts courtesy of NASA's Langley Research Center/ Nithin Sivadas -
An unexpected blob, circled in green, seen in radar data from Poker Flat sparked the research leading to the discovery of the structured diffuse aurora as maps of the edge of the outer Van Allen belt. Credit: NASA/Nithin Sivadas
Provided by NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center
