CrazyNeutrino said:
High-speed electrons have been spotted outside Earth’s magnetic field
In the region of space just outside Earth’s magnetic field, NASA has detected electrons that are being accelerated to almost the speed of light – and no one can explain why.
In fact, our current understanding of particle physics says this kind of acceleration should be impossible so far out from the magnetosphere, and now physicists are trying to figure out what kind of force can be pushing them to such speeds.
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“The high-speed electrons were detected by NASA’s THEMIS mission, which sent five satellites into Earth’s orbit to observe how our planet’s protective magnetic field captures and releases solar winds and cosmic radiation.”
THEMIS has been an enormous success. I hesitate to say it, but THEMIS can be considered to be the most successful non-photography space mission ever launched (with apologies to GOCE and GP-B fans).
“High-energy electrons are constantly being hurled at us from the Sun, but are deflected by our super-strong magnetic field before they can pose any kind of threat. When this interaction occurs, the electrons encounter the outermost layer of the magnetosphere called the bow shock, and its magnetic field slows them down, causing most of them to be deflected back into space. But some of them will be reflected back towards the Sun, forming a band of high-energy, super-fast electrons just outside the magnetosphere called the foreshock boundary region. THEMIS satellites have revealed that the electrons can also gain energy through electromagnetic activity in the foreshock region itself – and no one can explain how. In fact, it looks like these electrons never even made it to the bow shock. The electrons could not have originated from the bow shock, as had been previously thought. The electrons were moving in all directions.”
That’s a real head-scratcher.
“It seems to suggest that incredibly small scale things are doing this, because the large scale stuff can’t explain it”.
I totally agree. This is a deep mystery akin to the well known mystery of why the Sun’s corona is so hot.