New (never recorded or seen before) phenomena discovered

NASA

Colliding Auroras Produce Explosions of Light
December 17, 2009: A network of cameras deployed around the Arctic in support of NASA's THEMIS mission has made a startling discovery about the Northern Lights. Sometimes, vast curtains of aurora borealis collide, producing spectacular outbursts of light. Movies of the phenomenon were unveiled at the Fall meeting of the American Geophysical Union today in San Francisco.

"Our jaws dropped when we saw the movies for the first time," says space scientist Larry Lyons of UCLA, a leading member of the team that made the discovery. "These outbursts are telling us something very fundamental about the nature of auroras."

(visit the link for the full news article)


Click here for an animated gif of the phenomena from NASA


It's interesting that these are so vast, no once has noticed them before.

The collisions occur on such a vast scale, isolated observers on Earth with limited fields of view had never noticed them before. It took a network of sensitive cameras spread across thousands of miles to get the big picture.

That is VERY COOL

who'da thunk, eh.
S+F

"Our jaws dropped when we saw the movies for the first time," says space scientist Larry Lyons of UCLA, a leading member of the team that made the discovery. "These outbursts are telling us something very fundamental about the nature of auroras."

reply to post by C.H.U.D.


The way they use the word collide here has me wondering if they are
saying this is a natural way that particles can collide?
Like they are claiming these to be little bangs?

[edit on 17-12-2009 by randyvs]

I am interested in how this might be explained in the Plasma Cosmology and/or Electric Universe theory.

Very cool phenomena, I never would have known, but then again I've never seen the Aurora borealis with my own two eyes, just pictures .

Anyways, Flag for this awesome stuff,
NEXUS

[edit for grammar]

[edit on 18-12-2009 by NoEXcUseS]

So I guess Hollow Earth theory might be true then

If we had a hollow earth, we'd have no magnetic field to protect us, and we'd be dead. How would the geomagnetic dynamo work if the earth was hollow?

Really enjoyable - thanks for posting.

Nature is awesome.

I've got to be honest, people, this means absolutely nothing to me.

Nice find!
Why is it that NASA gets hundreds of millions of dollars every year but they can't afford a few colour digital cameras?

reply to post by wycky


"Color" CCDs are less versatile, less sensitive, more noisy, and almost never as good for scientific purposes as an equivalently sized and priced greyscale CCD. Some of the most expensive, best cameras in my lab are greyscale as well.

im still not totally catching this. your saying the northern lights are colliding at some point? from the gray scale i see the snake lights and how they react to one another. something tells me this type of "energy" isn't supposed to be able to do this. regardless i love it! wonder what it would look like in color.

Once again, Electric Universe theory explains everything that the "scientists" are "baffled" by:

thunderbolts.info...

This is all electrical activity. It is so obvious. However, all "scientists" resist it to the utmost. To admit that any aspect of this theory is correct, implies that the rest of it is too. This will set astronomy, cosmology, meteorology, geology and countless other disciplines on their heads. Admitting any of it is correct means that everything else is wrong.

No one wants to admit that everything they've been taught, everything they think they know, and everything that their bosses know and their professors know is WRONG. This would mean you have spent your entire career studying the wrong stuff.

Imagine what the guys who had spent their lives studying all the epicycles of the planets in order to explain the idea that the Earth is the center of the universe thought about a guy called Copernicus? He was telling them that EVERYTHING they have spent their lives studying is completely wrong! No way! Don't accept that! BURN HIM AT THE STAKE!

thunderbolts.info...

These "bursts" are nothing new, they have been verified since at least 1973. What is the big mystery? No one wants to admit that the emperor has no clothes!

thunderbolts.info...

Wow, that is really cool video. The gif in the OP does not work, but the video on the nasa site is still up.

pictures anywere?

Thread is over 2 years old people....... FNGs

reply to post by Reign02


So? This is the first time I saw it, and I thought it was cool.

two years old? oh...lol. well then i guess i won't write 'ummm the link doesn't work' lol.

on a side note. one time when i was 6, and we were driving home late at night to our home out in the country (i grew up a 20 min drive outside of a small town in Northern Ontario on 320 acres in a 5000 square ft log home, it was amazing...) and i was sitting in the front seat with my mom driving as i watched the Northern Lights out the windshield in front of me. after asking my mom what they were, she decided to tell me this little horrifying story...

'my mom(referring to her mom/my gramma) told me when i was little that they were spirits that come out at night in the sky, but don't ever whistle at them'. so of course being 6 i asked 'why not!?'

she then said 'oh because then they will hear where you are, and see you, and then come down and get you!' so of course i was wide eyed staring at them thinking 'OMG'.

so when we got home and out of the car my mom said 'why don't you whistle to see if they hear you?' and i was like 'NO!' as i was glued to my mothers side trying to 'hide' from the Northern Lights. then she said 'it's okay we will run inside they can't get people when their inside'. so being curious i unattatched myself from my mother side and turned towards the clear sky and the huge Northern Lights illuminating the it and i whistled as loud and best i could. however, as this was my first time seeing the Northern Lights and hearing anything about them, i also had no idea nor had i noticed in the moving car that they moved or 'danced across the sky' until i had just belted out a whistle at them.

my mom said 'look their moving, they heard you!!' with me trying to jump threw the door into the house, and my mom then adding 'oh no the key won't open the door, it's stuck!' as she jiggled the key, and bashed on the door pretending she couldn't open it. me then of course starting to scream/bawl as i pushed on the door while looking straight up into the sky and thinking the moving lights were actually coming down to get me...then she opened the door after like 30 seconds which seemed like an hour to me at the time i'm sure.

lol. god i haven't recalled that story in a long time until i saw this thread come up. how horrible was that? lol. i am 28 now, and while i don't believe the lights are going to come down and 'get me' i still don't whistle at them lol.... you never know!

reply to post by C.H.U.D.


Awsome stuff! Keep it coming!

Cheers