1998 SPACE SCIENCE VIDEOTAPES |
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Tape Title | Record ID | Date Produced | TRT: |
Synopois |
| SOLAR BLASTS SQUEEZE EARTH'S ATMOSPHERE INTO SPACE | G98-062 | 12/08/98 | 00:07:18 | Using particle detectors on NASA's Polar spacecraft, space physicists have detected oxygen and other gases gushing from Earth's atmosphere in response to a burst of energy from the Sun. Researchers have observed that the flow of "polar wind" out of Earth's atmosphere increased substantially when a storm from the Sun smacked into Earth on September 24-25, 1998. In effect, pressure from the solar ejection squeezed gas out of the ionosphere.
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TAPE CONTENTS: |
| ITEM (1): ENERGY BURSTS FROM THE SUN CAUSE OXYGEN AND OTHER GASES TO GUSH FROM EARTH'S ATMOSPHERE - Coronal Mass Ejections (CMEs) are eruptions of electrically charged gas from the Sun that can trigger magnetic storms around Earth. CMEs produce shock waves and clouds of plasma that can disturb Earth's magnetosphere. As a shock wave from the solar wind passes through Earth's magnetosphere, it excites and compresses the magnetic field. The interaction causes cold oxygen ions to flow out of Earth's atmosphere, blowing downwind into the magnetic tail. Courtesy of NASA
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| ITEM (2): LASCO CME IMAGE MOVIE - The Large Angle Spectrometric Coronagraph on the SOHO spacecraft observes a coronal mass ejection leaving the Sun. Courtesy of Naval Research Laboratory, ESA, and NASA |
| ITEM (3): MODEL OF EARTH'S MAGNETOSPHERE - Supercomputers generated this simulation of Earth's magnetosphere as it is buffeted by the solar wind. The gray ball at the left is Earth, with the Sun off the screen to the left. The translucent grey area shows the boundaries of the magnetosphere. Colors from blue (low) to red (high) show the intensity of the solar wind.
Courtesy of Advanced Visualization Lab/Univ. of Maryland at College Park
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| ITEM (4): AURORA AS SEEN BY POLAR UVI INSTRUMENT - Polar UVI instrument (ultraviolet) movie of day side aurora from September 24-25, 1998. Courtesy of NASA
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| ITEM (5): GROUND BASED AURORA BOREALIS IMAGES - As seen from the ground in Alaska, the aurora or northern lights, reflect the intensity of the flow of energy in the atmosphere and ionosphere near Earth's poles. Courtesy University of Alaska/NASA
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| ITEM (6): POLAR SPACECRAFT ANIMATION - Launched on February 24, 1996, by NASA, the satellite makes daily passes over Earth's north and south poles in order to study the energy and particles flowing into and out of the magnetosphere and producing the aurora.
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| ITEM (7): WIND SPACECRAFT ANIMATION - Launched on November 1, 1994, by NASA, the satellite spends most of its time flying into the solar wind outside Earth's magnetosphere in order to decipher its physical and chemical properties. Courtesy of NASA
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| ITEM (8): INTERVIEW EXCERPTS WITH THOMAS E. MOORE, HEAD, INTERPLANETARY PHYSICS BRANCHEXTRATERRESTRIAL PHYSICS LAB NASA GODDARD SPACE
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