'It's completely unexpected': Mystery of strange cloud formations over Martian landscape

'It's completely unexpected': Mystery of strange cloud formations over Martian landscape

An amateur astronomer has managed to capture recent images of Mars which appear to show cloud like formations on Mars.

Wayne Jaeschke, from West Chester, Pennsylvania, noticed the formations which can be seen rising up from the edge of the Martian disk after he took the pictures on March 20.

Some observers have suggested the so-called clouds are at least 150 miles away from the surface while others have suggested it could be debris which was disturbed after the Red Planet was hit by a meteor.

Amateur astrophotographer Wayne Jaeschke captured this picture of the Red Planet from his private observatory in West Chester, Pennsylvania. A 200 per cent enlargement of the formation can be seen at the top of the picture

The phenomenon has caused a buzz among astronomers who are set to investigate into the cloud-like formation further

Social networking sites have been buzzing with the latest find which has prompted astronomers to investigate further and before they disappear.

'It's not completely unexpected. But it's bigger than we would expect, and it's definitely something that our atmosphere guys want to take a look at,' said Jonathon Hill, a member of the Mars Space Flight Facility at Arizona State University, to Cosmic Log.

A Thermal Emission Imaging System (Themis) on Nasa's Mars Odyssey orbiter will be used to look at the area where the cloud was spotted.

Mr Hill said the Themis camera is capable of getting simultaneous visible and thermal infrared images which would capture the cloud structures and their temperatures.

Themis on Nasa's Mars Odyssey orbiter will be used to look at the area which has the cloud

The Themis camera is capable of getting simultaneous visible and thermal infrared images

Astronomers are keen to investigate the phenomenon quite quickly because there have been reports that it is reducing in size

Themis will be looking at the activity on Mars's shield volcanoes and around the southern site, which was spotted by Mr Jaeschke.

Mr Jaeschke, who has a private observatory, said it looked as though the formation had reduced in size but added that it was important to act quickly and investigate the phenomenon.

The feature can be viewed from the Americas and should show up show up on the edge of Mars's disk around 1:10 a.m. ET Saturday, and 39 minutes later each succeeding night.

The feature can be viewed from the Americas and should show up show up on the edge of Mars' disk.
 

From http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2119623/Is-life-Mars-Well-certainly-looks-like-CLOUDS.html#ixzz1qnhkAkkz

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Magnetic Portals Connect Earth to the Sun

Magnetic Portals Connect Earth to the Sun

During the time it takes you to read this article, something will happen high overhead that until recently many scientists didn't believe in. A magnetic portal will open, linking Earth to the sun 93 million miles away. Tons of high-energy particles may flow through the opening before it closes again, around the time you reach the end of the page.

 
"It's called a flux transfer event or 'FTE,'" says space physicist David Sibeck of the Goddard Space Flight Center. "Ten years ago I was pretty sure they didn't exist, but now the evidence is incontrovertible."

Image: An artist's concept of Earth's magnetic field connecting to the sun's--a.k.a. a "flux transfer event"--with a spacecraft on hand to measure particles and fields. [Larger image]

Indeed, today Sibeck is telling an international assembly of space physicists at the 2008 Plasma Workshop in Huntsville, Alabama, that FTEs are not just common, but possibly twice as common as anyone had ever imagined.
 
Researchers have long known that the Earth and sun must be connected. Earth's magnetosphere (the magnetic bubble that surrounds our planet) is filled with particles from the sun that arrive via the solar wind and penetrate the planet's magnetic defenses. They enter by following magnetic field lines that can be traced from terra firma all the way back to the Sun's atmosphere.

"We used to think the connection was permanent and that solar wind could trickle into the near-Earth environment anytime the wind was active," says Sibeck. "We were wrong. The connections are not steady at all. They are often brief, bursty and very dynamic." 

Several speakers at the Workshop have outlined how FTEs form: On the dayside of Earth (the side closest to the sun), Earth's magnetic field presses against the Sun's magnetic field. Approximately every eight minutes, the two fields briefly merge or "reconnect," forming a portal through which particles can flow. The portal takes the form of a magnetic cylinder about as wide as Earth. The European Space Agency's fleet of four Cluster spacecraft and NASA's five THEMIS probes have flown through and surrounded these cylinders, measuring their dimensions and sensing the particles that shoot through. "They're real," says Sibeck.

Now that Cluster and THEMIS have directly sampled FTEs, theorists can use those measurements to simulate FTEs in their computers and predict how they might behave. Space physicist Jimmy Raeder of the University of New Hampshire presented one such simulation at the Workshop. He told his colleagues that the cylindrical portals tend to form above Earth's equator and then roll over Earth's winter pole. In December, FTEs roll over the North Pole; in July they roll over the south pole.

Image: A "magnetic portal" or FTE mapped in cross-section by NASA's fleet of THEMIS spacecraft. [Larger image]

Sibeck believes this is happening twice as often as previously thought. "I think there are two varieties of FTEs: active and passive." Active FTEs are magnetic cylinders that allow particles to flow through rather easily; they are important conduits of energy for Earth's magnetosphere. Passive FTEs are magnetic cylinders that offer more resistance; their internal structure does not admit such an easy flow of particles and fields. 

(For experts: Active FTEs form at equatorial latitudes when the IMF tips south; passive FTEs form at higher latitudes when the IMF tips north.) Sibeck has calculated the properties of passive FTEs and he is encouraging his colleagues to hunt for signs of them in data from THEMIS and Cluster. "Passive FTEs may not be very important, but until we know more about them we can't be sure."

There are many unanswered questions: Why do the portals form every 8 minutes? How do magnetic fields inside the cylinder twist and coil? "We're doing some heavy thinking about this at the Workshop," says Sibeck. 

Meanwhile, high above your head, a new portal is opening, connecting your planet to the sun. 

Author: Dr. Tony Phillips | Credit: Science@NASA

more information

2008 Huntsville Plasma Workshop -- home page Below: In a presentation at the 2008 Plasma Workshop, Robert Fear of the University of Leicester, UK, presented some alternatives for the magnetic topology of FTEs. Possibilities include ropes (left column), cylinders (middle column), or bubbles (right column): abstract. Space Weather resources:NOAA Space Weather prediction Center; Spaceweather.com

From http://science.nasa.gov/science-news/science-at-nasa/2008/30oct_ftes/

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Spacequakes

Spacequakes

Researchers using NASA’s fleet of five THEMIS spacecraft have discovered a form of space weather that packs the punch of an earthquake and plays a key role in sparking bright Northern Lights. They call it “the spacequake.”

A spacequake in action. Click to launch a computer-simulated movie created by Walt Feimer of Goddard’s Scientific Visualization Lab.

A spacequake is a temblor in Earth’s magnetic field. It is felt most strongly in Earth orbit, but is not exclusive to space. The effects can reach all the way down to the surface of Earth itself.
“Magnetic reverberations have been detected at ground stations all around the globe, much like seismic detectors measure a large earthquake,” says THEMIS principal investigator Vassilis Angelopoulos of UCLA.
It’s an apt analogy because “the total energy in a spacequake can rival that of a magnitude 5 or 6 earthquake,” according to Evgeny Panov of the Space Research Institute in Austria. Panov is first author of a paper reporting the results in the April 2010 issue of Geophysical Research Letters (GRL).
In 2007, THEMIS discovered the precursors of spacequakes. The action begins in Earth’s magnetic tail, which is stretched out like a windsock by the million mph solar wind. Sometimes the tail can become so stretched and tension-filled, it snaps back like an over-torqued rubber band. Solar wind plasma trapped in the tail hurtles toward Earth. On more than one occasion, the five THEMIS spacecraft were in the line of fire when these “plasma jets” swept by. Clearly, the jets were going to hit Earth. But what would happen then? The fleet moved closer to the planet to find out.
“Now we know,” says THEMIS project scientist David Sibeck of the Goddard Space Flight Center. “Plasma jets trigger spacequakes.”

During a spacequake, Earth’s magnetic field shakes in a way that is analogous to the shaking of the ground during an earthquake. Image credit: Evgeny Panov, Space Research Institute of Austria. [larger image]

According to THEMIS, the jets crash into the geomagnetic field some 30,000 km above Earth’s equator. The impact sets off a rebounding process, in which the incoming plasma actually bounces up and down on the reverberating magnetic field. Researchers call it “repetitive flow rebuffing.” It’s akin to a tennis ball bouncing up and down on a carpeted floor. The first bounce is a big one, followed by bounces of decreasing amplitude as energy is dissipated in the carpet.
“We’ve long suspected that something like this was happening,” says Sibeck. “By observing the process in situ, however, THEMIS has discovered something new and surprising.”
The surprise is plasma vortices, huge whirls of magnetized gas as wide as Earth itself, spinning on the verge of the quaking magnetic field.

A THEMIS map of plasma flows during a spacequake. The axes are labeled in Earth radii, so each swirl is about the size of Earth. [larger image]

“When plasma jets hit the inner magnetosphere, vortices with opposite sense of rotation appear and reappear on either side of the plasma jet,” explains Rumi Nakamura of the Space Research Institute in Austria, a co-author of the study. “We believe the vortices can generate substantial electrical currents in the near-Earth environment.”
Acting together, vortices and spacequakes could have a noticeable effect on Earth. The tails of vortices may funnel particles into Earth’s atmosphere, sparking auroras and making waves of ionization that disturb radio communications and GPS. By tugging on surface magnetic fields, spacequakes generate currents in the very ground we walk on. Ground current surges can have profound consequences, in extreme cases bringing down power grids over a wide area.
After THEMIS discovered the jets and quakes, Joachim Birn of the Los Alamos National Lab in New Mexico conducted a computer simulation of the rebounding process. Lo and behold, vortices appeared in good accord with THEMIS measurements. Moreover, the simulations suggest that the rebounding process can be seen from Earth’s surface in the form of ripples and whirls in auroral displays. Ground stations report just such a phenomenon.
“It’s a complicated process, but it all fits together,” says Sibeck.
The work isn’t finished. “We still have a lot to learn,” he adds. “How big can spacequakes become? How many vortices can swirl around Earth at once–and how do they interact with one another?”
Stay tuned for answers from THEMIS.
From http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/07/27/spacequakes/

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