When it concerns discoveries about our upper environment, it pays to understand your environments.
Utilizing information from the Twin Rockets to Investigate Cusp Electrodynamics (TRICE-2) rocket launch, NASA researcher Francesca Di Mare and Gregory Howes from the University of Iowa studied waves taking a trip down Earth's electromagnetic field lines into the polar environment. These waves were understood to speed up electrons, which gain ground as they “browse” along the electrical field of the wave. Their result on ions– a more heterogenous group of favorably charged particles, which exist together with electrons– was unidentified.
By approximating the ion mix they were flying through– mainly protons and singly-charged oxygen ions– the researchers found that these waves were speeding up protons as they circle about the Earth's electromagnetic field lines in addition to electrons as they browse the waves. The findings expose a brand-new method our upper environment is stimulated.
