Scientists from esa have confirmed that UAHUntsville astrophysicist Dr. Gary Zank was right two years ago with his models of strange spikes, or kinks, in the solar wind. The ESASolarOrbiter spacecraft has now “seen” the so-called 'solar switchbacks.'
The European Space Agency’s Solar Orbiter has taken the first-ever image of a solar switchback in the corona , confirming Dr. Gary Zank’s theory of switchback origin.European scientists have confirmed an Alabama astrophysicist was right two years ago with his models of strange spikes in the solar wind, the stream of protons and electrons coming from the Sun’s outmost “atmosphere” or corona.
Six times faster than a Category 5 hurricane and “super hot,” the solar wind “smacks” the Earth’s atmosphere when it happens, as one NASA scientist put it. Not enough is known about it - one reason the Solar Orbiter is there - but we know it is “responsible for triggering those majestic auroras typically seen at locations close to our north and south poles,” NASA says.
Zank and other Alabama researchers are studying various space phenomena that could lead to new technologies and the ability to predict the space weather that can disrupt those Earth communications. The switchbacks were inferred by data from instruments on the Parker Solar Probe. One of the instruments used in the studies is a Faraday cup developed by UAH, NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center and the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory. It’s the only instrument outside the solar probe’s heat shield directly sampling particles as the probe makes “daisy petal-like dips” into and out of the solar wind.
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