NASA Discovers Third Global Energy Field – As Fundamental as Earth’s Gravity and Magnetic Fields

Something new to science, although predicted, gets measured in Earth’s ionosphere. The research team ‘found that the ambipolar field increases what’s known as the “scale height” of the ionosphere by 271%, meaning the ionosphere remains denser to greater heights than it would be without it.’
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Using observations from a NASA suborbital rocket, an international team of scientists has, for the first time, successfully measured a planet-wide electric field thought to be as fundamental to Earth as its gravity and magnetic fields, says SciTechDaily.

Known as the ambipolar electric field, scientists first hypothesized over 60 years ago that it drove how our planet’s atmosphere can escape above Earth’s North and South Poles.

Measurements from the rocket, NASA’s Endurance mission, have confirmed the existence of the ambipolar field and quantified its strength, revealing its role in driving atmospheric escape and shaping our ionosphere — a layer of the upper atmosphere — more broadly.

Understanding the complex movements and evolution of our planet’s atmosphere provides clues not only to the history of Earth but also gives us insight into the mysteries of other planets and determining which ones might be hospitable to life.

The paper was published on August 28, 2024, in the journal Nature.

An Electric Field Drawing Particles Out to Space
Since the late 1960s, spacecraft flying over Earth’s poles have detected a stream of particles flowing from our atmosphere into space. Theorists predicted this outflow, which they dubbed the “polar wind,” spurring research to understand its causes.

Some amount of outflow from our atmosphere was expected. Intense, unfiltered sunlight should cause some particles from our air to escape into space, like steam evaporating from a pot of water. But the observed polar wind was more mysterious. Many particles within it were cold, with no signs they had been heated — yet they were traveling at supersonic speeds.

“Something had to be drawing these particles out of the atmosphere,” said Glyn Collinson, principal investigator of Endurance at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, and lead author of the paper. Scientists suspected a yet-to-be-discovered electric field could be at work.

The hypothesized electric field, generated at the subatomic scale, was expected to be incredibly weak, with its effects felt only over hundreds of miles. For decades, detecting it was beyond the limits of existing technology.

In 2016, Collinson and his team got to work inventing a new instrument they thought was up to the task of measuring Earth’s ambipolar field.

How the Ambipolar Field Works
Scientists theorized this electric field should begin at around 150 miles (250 kilometers) altitude, where atoms in our atmosphere break apart into negatively charged electrons and positively charged ions.

Electrons are incredibly light — the slightest kick of energy could send them shooting out to space. Ions are at least 1,836 times heavier and tend to sink toward the ground. If gravity alone were in play, the two populations, once separated, would drift apart over time.

But given their opposite electric charges, an electric field forms to tether them together, preventing any separation of charges and counteracting some of the effects of gravity.

This electric field is bidirectional, or “ambipolar,” because it works in both directions. Ions pull the electrons down with them as they sink with gravity. At the same time, electrons lift ions to greater heights as they attempt to escape to space, like a tiny dog tugging on its sluggish owner’s leash.

The net effect of the ambipolar field is to extend the height of the atmosphere, lifting some ions high enough to escape with the polar wind.

Full article here.
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Source: https://tallbloke.wordpress.com/2024/09/01/nasa-discovers-third-global-energy-field-as-fundamental-as-earths-gravity-and-magnetic-fields/