Key Points

A rocket team reports the first successful detection of Earth’s ambipolar electric field: a weak, planet-wide electric field as fundamental as Earth’s gravity and magnetic fields.
First hypothesized more than 60 years ago, the ambipolar electric field is a key driver of the “polar wind,” a steady outflow of charged particles into space that occurs above Earth’s poles.
This electric field lifts charged particles in our upper atmosphere to greater heights than they would otherwise reach and may have shaped our planet’s evolution in ways yet to be explored.

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[-] Linktank@lemmy.today 20 points 2 months ago

Time to start harvesting that power to the detriment of the environment ASAP. We're already on borrowed time here folks, hurry up!

[-] Reverendender@sh.itjust.works 13 points 2 months ago

Holy shit, Dust is real! I feel compelled to summon a witch.

[-] themadcodger@kbin.earth 7 points 2 months ago

It's original sin. Best to just cut that right out of you.

[-] partial_accumen@lemmy.world 4 points 2 months ago

Where's my dæmon ?

[-] gravitas_deficiency@sh.itjust.works 2 points 2 months ago

Alternatively, you could just set up a cron job

[-] workerONE@lemmy.world 7 points 2 months ago

Is this what birds use to migrate?

[-] CptEnder@lemmy.world 2 points 2 months ago

What launch site is that?

this post was submitted on 28 Aug 2024

172 points (98.3% liked)

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