More accurate space-weather predictions and safer satellite navigation through radiation belts could someday result from new insights into “space waves,” researchers at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University reported.
The group’s latest research, published on May 4, 2023, by the journal Nature Communications, shows that seasonal and daily variations in the Earth’s magnetic tilt, toward or away from the sun, can trigger changes in large-wavelength space waves.
These breaking waves, known as Kelvin-Helmholtz waves, occur at the boundary between the solar wind and the Earth’s magnetic shield. The waves happen much more frequently around the spring and fall seasons, researchers reported, while wave activity is poor around summer and winter.
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