Short Stuff: Space Hurricanes

the magnetic north pole of this yere planet Earth. For the first time in the history of humanity, we documented what's known as a space plasma hurricane in that neat. It's neat and uh, this is something that wasn't fully Um well it was documented here and there, but Nature Communications wrote about it in February of this year, so I think it got a lot more attention, um, seven years after the fact, almost seven years. But yeah, this was, like you said about the north Pole, it happened over

a few hours. Um. The results of what happened up there was there were some satellites that were disrupted. Um, the geo magnetic field got a little kinky for a little while. But back here on Earth, uh, well below the eyeonosphere, we we were just like, I don't know

what I was doing in August. I could probably go back and look unmarkable, though I wasn't thinking about space hurricanes, no, because no one really noticed, because in August that's a pretty terrible time typically to see the Auroras um or at least the Aurora borealis, because the day the days are so much longer than the nights, so you can't

really see these these fantastic light displays. But had you been able to see the Aurora borealis that night, you would have been knocked right out of your your hiking boots. Basically because this was again, a space hurricane. It doesn't happen every day, and we don't really understand fully how

they happen or why. But they're called space hurricanes because from what we saw, from what this Nature Communications paper from February said, um, it bears a striking resemblance to a tropical hurricane or a cyclone or an Atlantic hurricane, where there's a mass of energy basically spinning around uh

calm center. There's a million differences between I say, earthbound hurricane and a space hurricane, but the fact that they're there you could even call both hurricanes is kind of startling, And actually it seems to me, Chuck, kind of like it's presenting like a new pioneer in scientific research. Now, like we're like, Okay, how does this happen? Where did

these come from? What is going on here? I agree, And I also have to admit I was distracted for a minute because I was obsessed with trying to figure out what I was doing on August? Did you ever figure it out? No, because I didn't open up my calendar and go back. But I did find out that it was a Wednesday, so I know we probably weren't recording this, and it was a year after our TV show aired, which aired over the course of what like

ten days. Yeah, you're probably in hiding still may have been, Yeah, but I think that's probably a good place. We can't break yet, can we? Sure we can? It's a short stuff ever, anything goes all right, let's take a break. Then I'll get my head back in the game. Okay, Chuck, you took a salt tablet, you walked it off, and now your head's back in the game. Right, My head's

back in the game. Where did you leave off? I left off about how space hurricanes are basically presenting a new pioneer frontier in in space research because we didn't really know they existed. We suspected something like that existed, but we certainly had no idea that there were arms of plasma that that spun around at staggering speeds a calm center. But but it's not wind we're talking about. These aren't clouds. This is a water vapor like this

is plasma. These are ions and electrons and and just incredible energy and magnetism. Has nothing to do with the earthbound hurricane, and yet it bears a striking resemblance to it.

It's very bizarre. Yeah, it is interesting, and that there is uh, what you can think of as precipitation in both and that we get the rain on Earth and there's this electric precipitation, and it's super interesting that there is an eye and that they spin and have arms, which you know, uh, obviously it's why they're called hurricanes.

I know. There was one meteorologists in here who in the House Stuff Works article that said he thought they might have been called space vortex is initially because it was over the North Pole and resembled the polar vortex, but they went with the space hurricane, I guess because

it's a little sexier probably. Um. One of the other ways that they're different is the sheers well from where they occur obviously the Earth's atmosphere UM from I think ground zero, or we should probably just say the ground the surface, the from the ground to about five to nine miles up is where you're gonna find an Earth hurricane, yeah, whereas the space hurricane is in the eyeonmosphere, like I

mentioned early on. And then the sheer size. Uh, this one I think was about six hundred miles wide, right, and which is huge it is that's gets a good size. It's about double the size of like a giant Atlantic hurricane. And it's spun really fast miles per hour about d and sixty kilometers per hour um, just whipping around. And again there's a calm center where this activity is not happening, where this rotation is taking place, or is the center where for the rotation. And we have a fairly good

handle on hurricanes. Are our explanation in our hurricanes episode. Notwithstanding science generally understands how hurricanes here on Earth work space hurricanes. Again, this is new. There was there was one I read an article about a guy who said, yeah, we're pretty sure one of these happened like fifty years ago, but we didn't have anything like the instrumentation today, so we couldn't document it. This is the first one we've actually documented, so this is like brand new to us.

But rather than wind and water, vapor and clouds, the space hurricane is made of plasma. And plasma, as we've talked about many times, chuck is the fourth state of matter where it's like solid and then you make it a little more energetic and it becomes liquid, a little more energetic, becomes gas. Well, even more energetic than that is plasma, where there's it's such high temperature, and of

course temperature is just another measure. Are you thinking about where you were in August fourteen again, No, I'm thinking about how plasma is the umami of states of matter. Okay, good enough, as long as you're thinking about plasma right now. But it's so energetic and it's so high temperature, which is a measure of energy that like the electrons and the positively charged nuclei just get ripped apart and spread

apart so that they don't interact. So you just got this um electrified magnetized incredibly hot energetic gas, and that instead of clouds of water vapor what make up the arms of the space hurricane. Right, And as far as the conditions of when this happened in if you remember from our not the sun episode, but uh, what was it on solar winds? We do it on space weather? Is at it probably when we talked about the eleven

year cycle of the sun. Yeah, I'm pretty sure that we probably talked about it in both of them, but yes, space space weather. I think it was better in space weather. Uh So at the time when this happened, still don't know what I was doing that day, but on that Wednesday, the Sun was at its maximum of that eleven year cycle that we talked about, uh, and was also at a time of what the ACU weather people called low

solar and otherwise low geomagnetic activity. So the people that they interviewed from ACU weather said that it did resemble an Earth hurricane and that there was, uh there's usually like quiet, like the calm before the storm, the quiet conditions, and it was the same in space although now I think we're having uh we're not sure if it was the maximum of the eleven year cycle set against low geomagnetic activity, or if it was the minimum and this

is a misprint. Oh, I see, I see, so I see. Um. So what I understand is that that, yeah, can whatever it was. The upshot is that space weather was calm, like whatever normal space whether we get from the Sun, it was generally calm, which is weird because you think that it would be that solar wind from the Sun that would cause this kind of thing. But they're like, no, we we actually have no idea where this thing came from.

And the fact that it isn't related to the solar cycle, that eleven year cycle makes them think that it's probably a little more common than we realized, and now that we know what to look for, we're gonna start noticing them. So they think maybe it has to do with change in the magnetic field lines, where one was like ripped apart and then connected with the neighbor, releasing a tremendous amount of magnetic energy. That's one of the explain nations

I've seen. There's a few others too. Yeah, and you know the um to borrow your phrase, The upshot is is that it's really not going to matter much to us on Earth. I guess if we had any kind of um space exploration going on during one of these, that probably wouldn't be great if you were up there, just a guess. But they kind of come back with a line that you always hear when it's something that could disrupt satellites is here on Earth, it might mess

with your GPS. I feel like that's always what you hear. Yeah, pretty much. Yeah, whenever there's satellite interference, it can be problematic. I mean that was a big part of the um Space Weather episode two. But yeah, and why two k am? I right, yeah, man, we need to do an episode just on that. I can't wait to do that. Really, Yeah, we're going to Okay, the nineties are back, are they? From what I understand? You know, a new seventies sort of disco tech bar is opening in Atlanta this weekend.

So oh sweet. When things are feeling really good, I think you and me and Emily and you should all go get our studio fifty four on. I would love that. I'm gonna go get some replacement goldfish from my platform shoes great because those other ones have been dead for years. They're getting a little gamy. I have to you got anything else about space hurricanes, nothing else. Look out for him. It's the new thing. Yeah, just this is going to get a follow up when we understand them a little more,

because they are amazing. So until then, this was your introduction to space hurricanes. I hope you enjoyed it, Chuck, hope you enjoyed it. They hope you enjoyed it. And in space stuff, short stuff is out. Stuff you Should Know is a production of I Heart Radio. For more podcasts my heart Radio, visit the i heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.