Nature Communications (Feb 2021)

A space hurricane over the Earth’s polar ionosphere

  • Qing-He Zhang,
  • Yong-Liang Zhang,
  • Chi Wang,
  • Kjellmar Oksavik,
  • Larry R. Lyons,
  • Michael Lockwood,
  • Hui-Gen Yang,
  • Bin-Bin Tang,
  • Jøran Idar Moen,
  • Zan-Yang Xing,
  • Yu-Zhang Ma,
  • Xiang-Yu Wang,
  • Ya-Fei Ning,
  • Li-Dong Xia

DOI
https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-021-21459-y
Journal volume & issue
Vol. 12, no. 1
pp. 1 – 10

Abstract

Read online

Hurricanes in the Earth’s low atmosphere are known, but not detected in the upper atmosphere earlier. Here, the authors show a long-lasting hurricane in the polar ionosphere and magnetosphere with large energy and momentum deposition despite otherwise extremely quiet conditions.