A group of Canadian and American researchers proposed an explanation for a mysterious phenomenon occasionally seen in the night sky along with the northern lightsthe University of Calgary reported this Friday.
The interaction between energetic particles from the Sun and the Earth’s atmospheric gases, such as oxygen and nitrogen, causes the appearance of bright trails of visible light in the polar regions of our planetknown as the northern lights.
This natural spectacle is sometimes accompanied by a spot of shades between white and gray. However, although it has been mentioned in previous research, scientists never delved deeper into this anomalous emission.
What is this white spot?
A study published in the journal Nature Communications describes for the first time this phenomenon, scientifically called ‘continuous structured broadcast’. Researcher Emma Spanswick explains that this white spot is a source of heat (energy)indicating that the northern lights are more complex than previously thought.
The interest of specialists in continuous structured emission arose from the discovery of another phenomenon associated with the northern lights, called ‘strong improvement of thermal emission rate’ (STEVE, for its acronym in English), and which manifests itself as a structure between mauve and gray tones.
According to Spanswick, there are similarities in the elevation of the spectrum of both phenomena. Unlike STEVE, which is observed as a separate band in the sky, The white spots are embedded in the auroras themselves, making their identification and analysis more difficult.. RT
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