A brand new radar will allow scientists to capture never-before-seen details of the northern lights.
The new equipment, EISCAT_3D, is being built at three sites in Norway, Sweden and Finland. It will allow researchers to measure the northern lights in 3D for the first time.
This could help scientists unlock the secrets of Earth’s ionosphere and how it interacts with space weather, as well as expand our understanding of auroras on our planet and beyond.
The ionosphere is a region of the Earth’s upper atmosphere, extending from about 50 to 640 kilometers above the Earth’s surface. It is characterized by a high concentration of charged ions and free electrons, created by the ionization of atmospheric gases by ultraviolet (UV) and X-rays from the Sun.
The northern and southern lights occur when charged particles from the Sun (from a coronal mass ejection) interact with the Earth’s magnetic field during a geomagnetic storm and collide with gases in the ionosphere, producing spectacular light displays.
ISTOCK / GETTY IMAGES PLUS
“The ionosphere is complex and constantly changing from day to day due to variations in space weather. Even small changes in the ionosphere can scatter radio waves from satellites, disrupting communications and GPS that society increasingly relies on,” Rosie Johnson, a researcher at Aberystwyth University who will use the radar to study the ionosphere, said in a statement.
“Our goal will be to use the unprecedented resolution of EISCAT_3D to understand small-scale changes in the ionosphere and their impact on technological systems.”
The northern lights are created by charged particles from the sun colliding with atoms and molecules in the atmosphere. The particles transfer energy to the atoms, making them “excited.” When the excited atoms return to their normal state, they release the excess energy as light, which we see as the northern lights.
“At lower energy levels, oxygen particles will produce red light. Nitrogen in the ionosphere produces violet light, which can combine with other colours in the aurora to create shades of pink and orange. These reactions are what create what we see as the northern lights,” Johnson said in the statement.
“Those who have recently seen the Aurora Borealis in the UK will have noticed more red above their heads, which occurs very high in the atmosphere. Further north, the same Aurora should have appeared greener above their heads, as the green emission occurs much lower in the atmosphere.”
Researchers hope that studying this phenomenon on other planets, such as Jupiter, will also help us better understand the northern lights on Earth.
Jupiter’s magnetic field is more than 20,000 times stronger than our planet’s, and it is home to some of the most intense auroras in our solar system.
NASA, ESA and J. Nichols University of Leicester
“Jupiter gives us a laboratory in space to study the auroras in a different context. Normally in a laboratory you can change the experiment, but in this case changing the experiment means changing the planet,” Johnson said.
“We know that the solar wind impacts the Earth’s northern lights, but on Jupiter, it’s not clear how the solar wind and the northern lights are related. No one has a definitive answer yet. The northern lights exist throughout the solar system and have been observed on Venus, Mars, Saturn, and Uranus.”
“This work will help us understand the connection between the Sun and the planets and determine whether what happens on Jupiter is similar to what happens on Earth. We also hope it will help us better understand our own planet.”
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