Close Menu
  • Home
  • UNSUBSCRIBE
  • News
  • Lifestyle
  • Tech
  • Entertainment
  • Sports
  • Travel
Facebook X (Twitter) WhatsApp
Trending
  • ‘Trash’ found deep inside a Mexican cave turns out to be 500-year-old artifacts from a little-known culture
  • Powerful Mother’s Day geomagnetic storm created radio-disrupting bubbles in Earth’s upper atmosphere
  • ‘The Martian’ predicts human colonies on Mars by 2035. How close are we?
  • Ram in the Thicket: A 4,500-year-old gold statue from the royal cemetery at Ur representing an ancient sunrise ritual
  • How much of your disease risk is genetic? It’s complicated.
  • Black holes: Facts about the darkest objects in the universe
  • Does light lose energy as it crosses the universe? The answer involves time dilation.
  • US Representatives worry Trump’s NASA budget plan will make it harder to track dangerous asteroids
Get Your Free Email Account
Facebook X (Twitter) WhatsApp
Baynard Media
  • Home
  • UNSUBSCRIBE
  • News
  • Lifestyle
  • Tech
  • Entertainment
  • Sports
  • Travel
Baynard Media
Home»Lifestyle»Potentially deadly ‘chirping waves’ detected in baffling location near Earth, and scientists are stumped
Lifestyle

Potentially deadly ‘chirping waves’ detected in baffling location near Earth, and scientists are stumped

EditorBy EditorJanuary 24, 2025No Comments3 Mins Read
Share Facebook Twitter Pinterest LinkedIn Tumblr Reddit Telegram Email
Share
Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Pinterest Email

Scientists have detected strange chirping waves — which resemble the dawn chorus of birds — thousands of miles from Earth, and they could pose big problems for future spaceflight.

Chorus waves, named because of their resemblance to birdsong when converted to audio signals, are perturbations in Earth’s electromagnetic field capable of accelerating particles to potentially deadly speeds for spacecraft and astronauts.

Yet while these mysterious waves have been spotted coming from Earth and other planets since the 1960s, scientists previously assumed they only occurred nearby.

Now, in a discovery that challenges existing theories, a new team of researchers has spotted the waves at a distance of 100,000 miles (165,000 kilometers) from Earth, roughly three times further than they were detected before. The researchers published their findings Jan 22. in the journal Nature.

Related: Scientists detect the most powerful cosmic rays ever — and their unknown source could be close to Earth

Chorus waves (or whistler-mode chorus waves) are bursts of energy lasting just a few tenths of a second that ping across Earth’s magnetosphere, the magnetic field that envelops our planet. The waves were first detected by World War I radio operators who heard them while listening for enemy signals.

In the decades since, chorus waves have been picked up by radio receivers, as well as by NASA’s Van Allen Probe spacecraft, which detected the chirrups coming from Earth’s radiation belts. The waves have also been spotted surrounding Mercury, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune (all planets with global magnetic fields) as well as Mars and Venus, which do not have magnetic fields.

Get the world’s most fascinating discoveries delivered straight to your inbox.

Scientists are still debating what causes chorus waves, but the most popular theory is that they are formed by an effect called plasma instability. Within curved dipoles, such as common bar magnets and planetary magnetic fields, electrons belched out by the sun are typically trapped along magnetic field lines. Typically, particles move along these lines in an orderly, spiral fashion.

But sometimes perturbations in the field disrupt this neat file, causing the electrons to generate chorus waves that resonate with the electrons and accelerate them to deadly, near-light speeds. According to this theory, the curved nature of these dipoles enables chorus waves to travel from pole to pole, producing their signature chirp.

Yet these new waves, detected by NASA’s Magnetospheric Multiscale satellites, were found in a relatively flat region of Earth’s magnetosphere, implying that they were instead produced by changes in frequency across the field.

To better study the waves and what could be producing them, the researchers have suggested better monitoring of incoming plasma belches from the sun and how they interact with Earth’s magnetosphere. This could lead to answers that may prove vital for ensuring that future satellites, astronauts and deep space missions to Mars and beyond aren’t fatally struck by high-speed electrons.

“The discovery doesn’t rule out the existing theory, because the expected magnetic field gradients could still be present, but it means that scientists need to take a closer look,” Richard Horne, the head of space weather at the British Antarctic Survey, who was not involved in the study, wrote in a commentary on the research. “It is a surprising result in a surprising region, and it prompts further investigation of chorus waves in regions in which Earth’s magnetic field deviates substantially from a dipole.”

Source link

Share. Facebook Twitter Pinterest LinkedIn Tumblr Email
Previous ArticleUnder $50 Skin-Plumping Products to Revive Dry, Dull Skin
Next Article AI weapon detection system at Antioch High School failed to detect gun in Nashville shooting
Editor
  • Website

Related Posts

Lifestyle

‘Trash’ found deep inside a Mexican cave turns out to be 500-year-old artifacts from a little-known culture

May 26, 2025
Lifestyle

Powerful Mother’s Day geomagnetic storm created radio-disrupting bubbles in Earth’s upper atmosphere

May 26, 2025
Lifestyle

‘The Martian’ predicts human colonies on Mars by 2035. How close are we?

May 26, 2025
Add A Comment

Comments are closed.

Categories
  • Entertainment
  • Lifestyle
  • News
  • Sports
  • Tech
  • Travel
Recent Posts
  • ‘Trash’ found deep inside a Mexican cave turns out to be 500-year-old artifacts from a little-known culture
  • Powerful Mother’s Day geomagnetic storm created radio-disrupting bubbles in Earth’s upper atmosphere
  • ‘The Martian’ predicts human colonies on Mars by 2035. How close are we?
  • Ram in the Thicket: A 4,500-year-old gold statue from the royal cemetery at Ur representing an ancient sunrise ritual
  • How much of your disease risk is genetic? It’s complicated.
calendar
May 2025
M T W T F S S
 1234
567891011
12131415161718
19202122232425
262728293031  
« Apr    
Recent Posts
  • ‘Trash’ found deep inside a Mexican cave turns out to be 500-year-old artifacts from a little-known culture
  • Powerful Mother’s Day geomagnetic storm created radio-disrupting bubbles in Earth’s upper atmosphere
  • ‘The Martian’ predicts human colonies on Mars by 2035. How close are we?
About

Welcome to Baynard Media, your trusted source for a diverse range of news and insights. We are committed to delivering timely, reliable, and thought-provoking content that keeps you informed
and inspired

Categories
  • Entertainment
  • Lifestyle
  • News
  • Sports
  • Tech
  • Travel
Facebook X (Twitter) Pinterest WhatsApp
  • Contact Us
  • About Us
  • Privacy Policy
  • Disclaimer
  • UNSUBSCRIBE
© 2025 copyrights reserved

Type above and press Enter to search. Press Esc to cancel.