"Roping" the Aurora Borealis

Scientists have new evidence suggesting that the colorful and eerie streams of light known as the Aurora Borealis may result from “magnetic ropes”. It seems that these “magnetic ropes” link the Earth’s upper atmosphere to the sun.

In spring of 2007 a fleet of satellites and ground-based stations (including northern Canadian stations located in Prince George and Whitehorse) caught a powerful space substorm over the northern hemisphere, which revealed something neat about our northern lights. A space substorm is literally a stream of energy from the sun that interacts with the Earth’s magnetic field. University of California researcher, Vassilis Angelopoulos commented that “the auroras surged westward…crossing 15 degrees of longitude in less than one minute. The storm traversed an entire polar time zone, or 400 miles, in 60 seconds flat.” According to CanWest reporter, Randy Boswell (Vancouver Sun, Dec. 12, 2007), researchers had theorized that colossal magnetic columns ran between Earth and the sun, offering a “conduit for energy” that manifests as bursts of northern lights.

Aliens too Wierd to Spot?...

Just to follow through from my last post on habitable planets and water...

According to the National Academy of Sciences panel, extraterrestrial life may be so wierd we couldn't recognize it, says Maggie Fox of the Vancouver Sun. The panel suggested last Friday that NASA's approach to "follow the water" may be too parochial and works only on the assumption that life everywhere is like life on Earth, based on water, carbon and DNA. But the panel of experts convened in Washington Seattle, contend that this approach may miss something exotic.

The purpose of a report commissioned by the U.S. space agency from the National Research Council (that advises the federal government on scientific issues) was to "be able to look for life on other planets and moons iwth an open mind," said John Baross, professor of Oceanography at the University of Washington and chair of the committee.

What might they look like? Will they have intelligence? Would we even recognize it?...We should perhaps be looking to the science-fiction writers of this planet for some ideas on other "life" forms...Of course, I always knew that...