NASA’s Global-scale Observations of the Limb and Disk (GOLD) mission has observed a series of bright features that resemble two letters: X and C. They have different origins but both indicate the same thing: the relationship between the highest layers of the atmosphere and the lowest ones is stronger than scientists thought.
ESA | The Northern Lights captured by Samantha Cristoforetti. Credit: Samantha Cristoforetti / ESA / Twitter
In the first episode of the Three-Body Problem series, it seems that all of humanity is being overwhelmed by acollective hallucination. Looking up at the sky the whole universe begins to to flash. It turns off and on again, with a series of pulses that seem hide a message. Now a NASA mission has observed two letters drawn in the sky. As fascinating as it may be, however, their origin is not alien at all.
The Global-scale Observations of the Limb and Disk (GOLD) mission has shown that in the ionosphere it is possible to observe special light formations which take the form of some letters, specifically X e C. The ionosphere is a band that is located between 60 and 1,000 km away from the Earth’s surface. This is where the aurora borealis usually form, a phenomenon that in recent months has also been observed in Italy after an exceptionally powerful geomagnetic storm.
How NASA Observed X’s and C’s Were Formed
X-shaped structures had been observed before, yet with the GOLD mission they were spotted in a new context. Jeffrey Klenzinga scientist at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, explained that the new observations, however, place the letters in a new context:
What was the strange light that appeared in the skies of Southern Italy on June 23: the explanation of the phenomenon
“The X is strange because it implies that there are much more localized drivers. This is expected during extreme events but seeing it during the ‘quiet period’ suggests that lower atmospheric activity is significantly driving ionospheric structure.”
What the letters observed in the ionosphere say
The appearance of these letters would therefore be directly linked to the lower atmospherethose bands that are found before the ionosphere. Not only that, the NASA mission also observed C-formationsborn from plasma bubbles that move following the Earth’s magnetic lines.
In short, these phenomena show that theEarth’s atmosphere even in the highest bands it is much more dynamic than previously thought. Not only that. From these studies we can also deduce that the ionosphere is not only influenced by external disturbances but also by movements of the lower atmosphere.
