Tornado inside a tornado?

[Maol]

Explain this



https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap231129.html

[Roy]

I posted a Q in the discussion of that APOD. Could it be electric? “Shut up”, they explained.

[nick c]

It is my guess that this photo is of an electric discharge mostly in dark mode, which is picking up dust and dirt which then defines the form of the otherwise invisible birkeland current.

[Maol]

I posted a Q in the discussion of that APOD. Could it be electric? “Shut up”, they explained.

I think your post in APOD was an excellent way to break the ice for a rational discussion of a natural display of EM forces in action.

What can make the atmosphere whirl like tha? A spout (land or water) goes up, opposite to a tornado, which goes down. Electric charge can bleed or strike up or down. A current generates a directed magnetic field around it we know.
Could electricity be at work here?

Your post was an excellent proposal for discussion in the form of a rhetorical question (rhetorical from an EU point of view). Don't weaken, make another post. Perhaps if you suggest in the form of another polite query similar in context to "is it not reasonable to expect" dust to behave similarly in an electric field in motion ? and point out that charged dust in motion would generate an EM field, some further discussion might ensue.

I wonder if this could be related: https://lasp.colorado.edu/2021/12/08/ma ... he-ground/ "Now an international research group led by Shoya Matsuda, an associate professor at Japan’s Kanazawa University has combined multiple simultaneous satellite observations of one type of electromagnetic waves to produce a 3D image of how these waves propagate from outer space to the ground."

[Maol]

https://cse.umn.edu/physics/news/umn-pa ... ace-ground

The team gathered data from four different observation points: Japan’s Arase satellite and PWING ground station, the United States’ Van Allen Probes satellites, and Canada’s CARISMA ground-based magnetometer array.

By comparing the observations obtained from each location, the researchers succeeded in centrally capturing how and where electromagnetic waves are generated in space as well as how these waves propagate to the ground.

They discovered that the EM waves propagate a distance of approximately 50,000 km along straw-shaped “propagation paths”, and energize particles in the magnetosphere during their long journey. “This important discovery was only possible with a coordinated international collaboration involving several satellite and ground station teams,” Colpitts said. This study marks the first time that a 3D map of how electromagnetic waves propagate in space has been created directly from observations.

[Maol]

Image of the Multipoint Observation of the Straw-shaped “Propagation Path” of Electromagnetic Waves © ERG Science Team