NASA confirms a 'two-way highway' opened up between Earth and the Sun

NASA has confirmed that a 'two-way highway' opened up between Earth and the Sun last April, causing Earth to spew particles back at the Sun.

NASA confirms a 'two-way highway' opened up between Earth and the Sun
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In April, Earth was hit by a huge solar storm that caused auroras to light up the night sky as far south as Arizona.

Auroras are caused by solar particles interacting with Earth's magnetic field in the upper atmosphere, and now NASA has revealed some more spectacular than incredible colors that occurred during the event. According to the NASA Sun & Space X account, for a brief period of time, a "two-way highway" formed between the Sun and Earth. This rare anomaly was caused by the Sun's coronal mass ejection (CME), a blast of solar particles traveling slower than waves called Alfvén waves.

Typically, the opposite occurs, but during the April 24 event, NASA's Magnetospheric Multiscale spacecraft recorded the CME traveling slower than the Alfvén waves moving through solar plasma. Bow shocks are shockwaves created when the solar wind blows on a planet's magnetic field, and during the April 24 event, the bow shock temporarily disappeared, causing charged particles to spew back at the Sun for approximately two hours.

NASA writes that if you had "super-vision," you would have been able to see an aurora form on the Sun.

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NEWS SOURCE:space.com

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Jak joined the TweakTown team in 2017 and has since reviewed 100s of new tech products and kept us informed daily on the latest science, space, and artificial intelligence news. Jak's love for science, space, and technology, and, more specifically, PC gaming, began at 10 years old. It was the day his dad showed him how to play Age of Empires on an old Compaq PC. Ever since that day, Jak fell in love with games and the progression of the technology industry in all its forms.

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