Speculation about the mysterious origin of the aurora has been around for a long time. But until now, unsubstantiated inferences have been clearly proven. The mystery has been revealed According to a new study published in the journal Nature, a team of physicists from the University of Iowa has finally demonstrated that the aurora is “generated by strong electromagnetic waves during geomagnetic storms.” The Northern Lights appear over a waterfall in Iceland. Photo: Getty Images. Research shows that these phenomena are known as Alfven waves, which launch electrons to Earth, causing the particles to produce a stream of light that scientists call the aurora borealis. “The measurements reveal that the small number of electrons undergo ‘resonant acceleration’ by the electric field of the Alfven wave, similar to a surfer catching a wave and continuing to accelerate while surfing with the wave,” said Deputy Professor Greg Howes, of the Department of Physics and Astronomy at the University of Iowa, is also a co-author of the study, said. The idea that electrons “surf” on an electromagnetic field is a hypothesis first introduced in 1946 by Russian physicist Lev Landau. The theory is named after the physicist who called it Landau damping. After more than 70 years, the Landau damping theory has been proven. Aurora re-creation After decades of research, scientists have understood how the aurora is produced, but only now have they been able to simulate these colorful bands of light. For the first time, artificial auroras have been recreated in the lab using large plasma physics equipment (LPD) at UCLA’s Basic Plasma Science Facility (BaPSF). Auroras observed from the International Space Station. Photo: NASA. According to the CNN , the scientists used a 20-meter-long room to reconstruct the Earth’s magnetic field using powerful magnetic coils on UCLA’s LPD instrument. Inside the room, the scientists created a plasma environment similar to what exists in near-Earth space. “Using a specially designed antenna, we project Alfven waves down the machine, just like when you quickly shake a water hose up and down and watch the waves move along the hose,” Mr Howes said. When they began to experience electrons “surfing” along the wave, they used other specialized instruments to assess how the electrons received energy from the wave. “Although the experiment did not reproduce the range of multicolored light in the sky, our measurements in the laboratory matched predictions from computer simulations and mathematical calculations, demonstrating that the Electrons surfing on Alfven waves can accelerate up to 72 million km / h and create aurora,” Mr Howes said. Study co-author Craig Kletzing added that these experiments allow them to make key measurements to prove the spatial and hypothetical measurements that actually explain how the aurora is produced. The aurora was taken in Alaska. Photo: Getty Images. Many space scientists are also excited by this new news. “I feel so excited! There are very few laboratory experiments that can prove hypotheses and models related to the space environment. Because space is so vast that it can’t be simulated in a lab,” said Patrick Koehn, a scientist in NASA’s Helicopter Physics Division. According to Koehn, understanding the acceleration mechanism of the electrons that produce the aurora will be useful for many future studies. Long road ahead Currently, the theory of how the aurora is generated has been proven, but there is still a long way to go to predict the strength of each upcoming storm. “Predicting the strength of a particular geomagnetic storm, based on observations of the Sun and measurements from spacecraft between the Earth and the Sun, remains a difficult unsolved problem.” Mr Howes said. Howes said they have established the bond of electrons surfing on Alfven waves about more than 16,000 km above the Earth’s surface. And now, they must learn to predict the strength of those Alfven waves using spaceship observatories.

The Sun’s atmosphere can be as hot as 1 million degrees Celsius. This increase in temperature, despite the increased distance from the Sun’s primary energy source, has been observed in most stars. In 1942, Swedish scientist Hannes Alfvén hypothesized that the magnetizing waves of plasma could carry large amounts of energy along the Sun’s magnetic field from the interior to the corona, passing through the photosphere. before exploding with heat in the upper atmosphere of the Sun. This hypothesis has been tentatively accepted, but there is no evidence that these waves exist. Recent research by scientists finally confirms Alfvén’s nearly 80-year-old hypothesis and brings us one step closer to harnessing this high-energy phenomenon on Earth. The sun is made up almost entirely of plasma Halo problems have been around since the late 1930s, when the Swedish spectrographer Bengt Edlén and the German astrophysicist Walter Grotrian first observed phenomena in the sun’s corona that could only be observed. present if its temperature is a few million degrees Celsius. This represents temperatures up to 1,000 times hotter than the photosphere below it, which is the surface of the Sun that we can see from Earth. Estimating the heat of the photosphere has always been relatively simple: we simply measure the light reaching us from the Sun and compare it with spectral models that predict the temperature of the light source. Through decades of research, the temperature of the photosphere has always been estimated to be around 6,000°C. Edlén and Grotrian’s discovery that the Sun’s corona is much hotter than the photosphere – albeit farther from the core. of the Sun, its supreme source of energy – has given the scientific community a headache. Scientists looked at the properties of the Sun to explain this difference. The sun is made up almost entirely of plasma, which is a highly ionized gas that carries an electrical charge. The movement of this plasma in the convection zone – the upper part of the sun – generates enormous electric currents and strong magnetic fields. These magnetic fields are then pulled up from the Sun’s interior by convection, and enter its visible surface in the form of sunspots, which are clusters of magnetic fields that can form a variety of magnetic structures. differences in the Sun’s atmosphere. Alfvén reasoned that within the Sun’s magnetized plasma, any large movement of charged particles would perturb the magnetic field, creating waves that could carry enormous amounts of energy across vast distances. (from the surface of the Sun to its atmosphere). Heat travels along what is known as a flux tube from the sun before bursting into the corona, creating its high temperature. Measure the temperature of the Sun with an imaging spectrometer These magnetic plasma waves are now known as Alfvén waves, and the explanation for the heating of the circle led to Alfvén being awarded the 1970 Nobel Prize in Physics. The Interferometric Bidimetric Urban Spectrometer (IBIS) for imaging spectroscopy, installed at the Dunn Solar Telescope in the US state of New Mexico. This instrument has allowed researchers to make more detailed observations and measurements of the Sun. Combined with good observational conditions, advanced computer simulations, and the efforts of an international team of scientists from seven research institutions, they used IBIS to confirm the existence of waves for the first time. Alfvén in flux tubes from the sun. The researchers also expect more solar discoveries soon, thanks to new, groundbreaking missions and tools. The European Space Agency’s Solar Orbiter satellite is currently in orbit around the Sun, providing images and making measurements of the star’s unexplored polar regions. The launch of the new high-performance Solar telescope is also expected to enhance our observation of the Sun from Earth.

The idea behind the study of nuclear fusion is to recreate how the Sun generates enormous amounts of energy, a process involving a large amount of heat and pressure that combine to form plasma, in which atomic particles fuse. with super speed. Scientists are looking to trigger and study these reactions on Earth with a variety of experimental equipment, but experts say that EAST, located at the Hefei Institute of Physical Sciences of the Academy of Sciences Chinese studies, is the most promising approach. Inside China’s “Artificial Sun”, the Tokamak Superconducting Reactor (EAST). Photo: Newatlas. The EAST is a metal toroidal device consisting of magnetic coils designed to sustain streams of superheated hydrogen plasma long enough for the above reactions to occur. In 2016, scientists at EAST heated a hydrogen plasma to about 50 million degrees Celsius and maintained it for 102 seconds. Then in 2018, they hit 100 million degrees Celsius, six times hotter than the Sun’s core, and lasted 10 seconds. According to the Xinhua , the latest test marks a big step forward, achieving a new record when heating the plasma to 120 million degrees Celsius and maintaining it for 101 seconds. In separate experiments, this “artificial sun” heated plasma to 160 million degrees Celsius in 20 seconds. The goal of EAST is to maintain the plasma at 100 million degrees Celsius for more than 1,000 seconds (about 17 minutes). These experiments are not designed to generate conventional electricity, but to advance the field of synthetic physics for next-generation devices such as ITER, the world’s largest nuclear fusion reactor is expected to be. completed by 2025. Similar to EAST, experiments on South Korea’s KSTAR reactor set a world record last year, maintaining plasma at more than 100 million degrees Celsius for 20 seconds. In addition, the country also announced the development of ITER and is expected to officially operate in 2035.

Since 2015, Russian engineers have sought to increase the combat capabilities of the Su-30SM. In particular, the plan to combine Su-30SM with Su-35S is also very feasible. To carry out this plan, engineers prepared a new Su-30SM model with a new engine, and studied the possibility of installing a new, more powerful “Irbis” radar instead of the current system. During the modernization process, the developers will propose to install the AL-41F-1C engine using the Su-35 for the Su-30SM2 version. The new engine is much more efficient than the current Su-30SM. “The life cycle of aircraft engines has doubled without increasing weight and size. Equipped with a plasma ignition system, the AL-41F-1C engine is more economical than the AL-31FP engine that the Su-30SM is using. With the same amount of fuel, the upgraded fighter can stay in the sky longer. In addition, the avionics, radar and visual positioning system have also been improved,” said Cadim Kozulin, an expert at the Russian Academy of Military Sciences. With the engine power and possibly the radar will also be upgraded, the Su-30SM2 Super Sukhoi will be a formidable opponent of the latest US F-15EX.