Physicists: Ancient life might have escaped Earth and journeyed to alien stars

A pair of researchers presented a wild new theory in a new paper

DID DINOSAURS BUILD UFO'S? 

JUST KIDDING IT WAS MICROBES HITCHING A RIDE ON A COMET

By Rafi Letzter - Staff Writer

An illustration shows a comet passing in front of a star.

(Image: © NASA/JPL-Caltech)

A pair of Harvard astrophysicists have proposed a wild theory of how life might have spread through the universe.

Imagine this:

Millions or billions of years ago, back when the solar system was more crowded, a giant comet grazed the outer reaches of our atmosphere. It was moving fast, several tens of miles above the Earth's surface — too high to burn up as a fireball, but low enough that the atmosphere slowed it down a little bit. Extremely hardy microbes were floating up there in its path, and some of those bugs survived the collision with the ball of ice. These microbes ended up embedded deep within the comet's porous surface, protected from the radiation of deep space as the comet rocketed away from Earth and eventually out of the solar system entirely. Tens of thousands, maybe millions, of years passed before the comet ended up in another solar system with habitable planets. Eventually, the object crashed into one of those planets, deposited the microbes — a few of them still living — and set up a new outpost for earthly life in the universe.

Related: 5 Reasons to Care About Asteroids

You could call it "interstellar panspermia," the seeding of distant star systems with exported life.

We have no idea whether this ever actually happened –.and there's a mountain of reasons to be skeptical. But in a new paper, Amir Siraj and Avi Loeb, both astrophysicists at Harvard University, argue that at least the first part of this story — the depositing of the microbes into a comet that gets ejected from the solar system — should have happened between one and a few dozen times in Earth's history. Siraj told Live Science that although a lot more work needs to be done to back up the finding, it should be taken seriously — and that the paper may have been, if anything, too conservative in its estimate of the number of life-exporting events.

While the study's concept may seem far-fetched, humanity is constantly confronted with seeming impossibilities, like Earth going around the sun, or quantum physics, or bacteria hitching a ride into the galaxy aboard a comet — that turn out to be true, Siraj said

And there's been reason to suspect that it might be possible. A series of experiments using small rockets in the 1970s found colonies of bacteria in the upper atmosphere. Comets really do enter and leave our solar system from time to time, and Siraj and Loeb's calculations show that it's plausible, maybe even likely, this has happened to large comets that graze Earth. Comets are porous, and might actually shield microbes from deadly radiation some microbes can survive a remarkably long time in space.

That alone is reason for scientists to take the idea seriously, Siraj said, and for researchers from fields like biology to jump in and figure out some of the details.

"It's a brand new field of science," he told Live Science

However, Stephen Kane, an astrophysicist at the University of California, Riverside, told Live Science that he was deeply skeptical of the suggestion that microbes from Earth might have actually turned up alive on alien planets through some version of this process.

The first problem would occur when the comet slammed into the atmosphere, he said. Siraj and Loeb point out that some bacteria can survive extraordinary accelerations. But the precise mechanism by which the microbes would adhere to the comet is unclear, Kane said, since the aerodynamic forces around the comet might make it impossible for any microbes to reach the surface and work their way deep enough below the surface to be protected from radiation.

It's also not clear, he said, whether any microbes would really have been up high in our atmosphere in the first place Those rocket experiments from the 1970s are old and questionable, he said, and we still don't have a good picture of what the biology of the upper atmosphere really looks like today — let alone hundreds of millions of years ago, when comet encounters were much more common.

The biggest question, though, Kane said, is what would happen to the microbes after they landed aboard the comet. It's plausible, he said, that some bacteria might survive decades in space — long enough to reach, say, Mars. But there's little direct evidence that any bacteria might survive the thousands or millions of years necessary to travel to another habitable star system. And that's really the key idea of this paper: Researchers have long suggested that debris from major collisions might blast life around between our solar system's planets and moons. But exporting life to an alien star system likely requires a more specialized scenario.

Still, Kane said, the calculations in this study of how precisely a comet might skim through the atmosphere were new to him, and "very interesting."

Siraj didn't strongly challenge any of Kane's concerns, but reframed them one by one as opportunities for further study. He wants to know, he said, precisely what the biology of the upper atmosphere looks like, and how comets might react to it. There's reason to think that at least some bacteria might survive super-long trips through deep space, he said, based on how robust they are under extreme conditions on Earth and in orbit. But for now, it's time for scientists across fields to jump in and start filling in the gaps, Saraj said.

Originally published on Live Science.

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Green turtle rescued from fishing net poops out all kinds of human trash 

By Laura Geggel - Associate Editor

This sea turtle likely ate the trash thinking it was food.

After getting tangled in a fishing net, this green turtle was brought in for rehabilitation.

(Image: © Fundación Mundo Marino) 

The phrase "what goes in … must come out" took on a literal meaning for a green turtle that had gobbled up human trash, only to poop it out later with help from a veterinarian. 

The green turtle (Chelonia mydas) was initially found tangled in the net of Roberto Ubieta, a fisherman from San Clemente del Tuyú, a town on the Atlantic coast of Argentina. Ubieta, who had received training from the Mundo Marino Foundation on how to help marine reptiles trapped in fishing nets, immediately got to work aiding the turtle.

But when Ubieta brought the animal to the rescue center of the San Clemente institution on Dec. 29, veterinarians there realized that the turtle had other immediate health problems. 

Related: Photos: Butterflies Drink Turtle Tears

A few days after arriving at the center, the turtle began pooping out trash, including fragments of nylon bags and hard plastics.

The green turtle pooped out this trash. (Image credit: Fundación Mundo Marino)

X-rays revealed that the turtle had garbage in its belly, likely because the animal had mistaken the trash for its natural food, such as jellyfish, sea grasses and worms, the foundation said.

"Therefore, we began a treatment with a medication that favors its peristaltic movements (movements of the digestive tract) and allows it to eliminate what we observed on the [X-ray] plates," Ignacio Peña, veterinarian at the Mundo Marino Foundation, said in a statement (translated from Spanish with Google translate). 

In all, the turtle defecated 0.5 ounces (13 grams) of garbage, the foundation said. \

Now, the turtle is doing much better. "Today, the turtle is eating green leaves, mainly lettuce and seaweed," Peña said.

(Image credit: Fundación Mundo Marino)

This is the third turtle brought to the foundation this year. The same fisherman found a dead green turtle on Jan. 12. A necropsy (an animal autopsy) of that turtle showed that the animal also had plastics in its digestive system. A third turtle survived but also expelled trash, a piece of nylon bag, in its poo.

Animals that mistake trash for food are at risk of death. Garbage can mechanically block their digestive tracts, as well as take up room so there's less space for nutritious meals.

"In addition, a large amount of gas could be generated … [as a] product of the accumulated plastic," Karina Álvarez, biologist and conservation manager at the Mundo Marino Foundation, said in the statement. "Which would affect their ability to dive and immerse, both to feed and to find more suitable temperatures." 

The green turtle, one of the largest sea turtles, is found in tropical and subtropical waters. These animals are endangered, according to the International Union for Conservation of Nature, largely because of humans who overharvest their eggs and hunt the adults, according to the World Wildlife Fund. Green turtles also face habitat loss and are frequently entangled in fishing gear. 

Sea turtles aren't the only aquatic animals to mistake trash for food. Garbage has also ended up inside fur seals living in a remote part of Chile and whales, including a sperm whale that died with a 220-lb. (100 kilograms) "litter ball" in its belly.

'Witch bottle' found in Virginia dates to the Civil War

By Mindy Weisberger - Senior Writer 

Bottles such as these were thought to ward off a witch's curse.  

Archaeologists found the bottle at a Civil War-era site on the median of Interstate 64 in York County, Virginia.

(Image: © Photo by Robert Hunter)

 glass bottle filled with rusted nails may not sound like much of an archaeological find. But this Civil War artifact could represent a type of talisman that was popular for warding off evil spirits: a "witch bottle."

Researchers found the bottle at a site known as Redoubt 9, a fortification built in 1861 by Confederate troops and later occupied by Union forces. Remains of the defensive structure lie on a highway median between exits 238 and 242 on Interstate 64, in York County, Virginia, representatives of the William & Mary Center for Archaeological Research (WMCAR) said in a statement. 

The bottle, discovered near a hearth, measures roughly 5 inches (13 centimeters) tall and 3 inches (8 cm) wide, and was made in Pennsylvania. This suggests that it was placed there by a Union soldier, likely at a time when the fort was occupied by the Pennsylvania cavalry, according to the statement.

Related: Busted: 6 Civil War Myths

When archaeologists recovered the bottle, "we thought it was unusual, but weren't sure what it was," WMCAR director Joe Jones said in the statement. At first, the researchers guessed that Union soldiers had simply used the bottle to store nails for repairing the mini-fort after Confederate attacks. But the bottle's location near a hearth, as well as the nails it contained, hinted that it might have served a ritual purpose.

"There were a lot of casualties and fear during this period," Jones said. "The Union troops were an occupying force in enemy territory throughout most of the war, so there were plenty of bad spirits and energy to ward off."

Hidden witch bottles dating to centuries ago have been found concealed in homes in London; the practice originated in England and then traveled to North America with British immigrants, and it persisted on both sides of the Atlantic Ocean into the 20th century, JSTOR Daily reported.

These forms of protection for buildings and families were most numerous during the 16th and 17th centuries, when witch-hunting and fears of harm through witchcraft were reaching a frenzied peak, according to the Museum of London Archaeology (MOLA). If a person thought that they had been cursed by a witch, they would fill a glass or ceramic bottle with bent pins and nails, sometimes adding bits of human hair or even urine, according to MOLA.

"The victim would bury the bottle under or near the hearth of his house, and the heat of the hearth would animate the pins or iron nails and force the witch to break the link or suffer the consequences," wrote anthropologist Christopher Fennell in 2000, in the International Journal of Historical Archaeology. 

"It is said that once the evil-doer was dead, the bottle would break," according to MOLA.

Though approximately 200 witch bottles have been found in the U.K., fewer than a dozen have turned up in the U.S., according to the WMCAR statement. The discovery of a witch bottle in a 19th-century fort offers a glimpse of traditional superstitions that may have persisted for a soldier who was far from his family, perhaps "an officer who felt especially threatened occupying hostile territory," Jones said. 

"Given the perceived threat of Confederate attack and general hostility of local residents, he had good reason to pull all the stops and rely on folk traditions from his community in Pennsylvania to help protect his temporary home away from home."

• Black Magic: 6 Infamous Witch Trials in History
• Photos: Scottish Church Once Imprisoned Accused Witches
• Here's Where J.K. Rowling Got Her Magical Ideas for Harry Potter (Photos)

Originally published on Live Science.

Towering dinosaur with radioactive skull identified in Utah 

By Laura Geggel - Associate Editor 

The 155-million-year-old specimen was headless until a radiation detector located the skeleton's skull.

This illustration shows a pack of the newly discovered Allosaurus jimmadseni attacking a young sauropod. (Image: © Todd Marshall) 

Paleontologists hve discvered the skeleton and radioactive skull of a previously unknown species of Allosaurus. The fearsome two-legged dinosaur sported 80 sharp teeth and horns over its eyes when it lived about 155 million years ago in what is now Utah.

But researchers didn't know any of these details at first; originally, they found only the dinosaur's skeleton but not the head. Even so, the block of rock that encased the skeleton was so massive — it weighed 6,000 lbs. (2,700 kilograms) — that paleontologists had to use explosives to remove the fossils and a helicopter to transport it. 

It wasn't until six years later, in 1996, that the headless body and its skull were reunited.

Related: Photos: Newfound Tyrannosaur Had Nearly 3-Inch-Long Teeth

That happy reunion was made possible by Ramal Jones, a retired University of Utah radiologist. Armed with a radiation detector, he located the radioactive skull not far from its body. It's not uncommon for dinosaur bones to be radioactive, as radioactive elements can leach into the bones over time from the surrounding sediment. Later, teams from Dinosaur National Monument excavated the dinosaur's head, which helped researchers identify the remains as a newfound dinosaur species. 

Scientists named the beast Allosaurus jimmadseni, after paleontologist James Madsen Jr. (1932-2009), recognizing him for his "herculean efforts of protecting, excavating, preparing and curating of many thousands of Allosaurus bones," the researchers wrote in the study.

During the late Jurassic period, A. jimmadseni lived on the semiarid flood plains of western North America. This dinosaur is the oldest species of Allosaurus, outdating Utah's better-known Allosaurus fragilis, which helped make the Allosaurus the state's official fossil. 

"Previously, paleontologists thought there was only one species of Allosaurus in Jurassic North America, but this study shows there were two species — the newly described Allosaurus jimmadseni evolved at least 5 million years earlier than its younger cousin, Allosaurus fragilis," study co-lead researcher Mark Loewen said in a statement. Loewen is a research associate at the Natural History Museum of Utah and an associate professor in the Department of Geology and Geophysics at the University of Utah.

This dinosaur was a big carnivore, measuring up to 29 feet (9 meters) long and weighing about 4,000 lbs. (1.8 metric tons). It had a narrow skull, horns in front of its eyes and a crest that ran from those horns to its nose. Each of the dinosaur's long arms ended with three sharp claws.

"The skull of Allosaurus jimmadseni is more lightly built than its later relative Allosaurus fragilis, suggesting a different feeding behavior between the two," Loewen noted.

Loewen and co-researcher Daniel Chure, a retired paleontologist at Dinosaur National Monument, detailed the study online Friday (Jan. 24) in the journal PeerJ.

Photos: The First Dino Fossil Found in Washington

Dinosaur Guts: Photos of a Paleo-Predator

Photos: Newfound Dinosaur Had Tiny Arms, Just Like T. Rex

Originally published on Live Science.

Black holes shouldn't echo, but this one might. Score 1 for Stephen Hawking?

\This isn't how black holes are supposed to behave.

By Rafi Letzter - Staff Writer

Black holes are infinitely dense objects surrounded by smooth event horizons.
(Image: © Shutterstock)

When two neutron stars slammed together far off in space, they created a powerful shaking in the universe — gravitational waves that scientists detected on Earth in 2017. Now, sifting through those gravitational wave recordings, a pair of physicists think they've found evidence of a black hole that would violate the neat model drawn from Albert Einstein's theory of general relativity.

In general relativity, black holes are simple objects: infinitely compressed singularities, or points of matter, surrounded by smooth event horizons through which no light, energy or matter can escape. Until now, every bit of data we've gleaned from black holes has supported this model.

But in the 1970s, Stephen Hawking wrote a series of papers suggesting that the borders of black holes aren't quite so smooth. Instead, they blur thanks to a series of effects linked to quantum mechanics that allow "Hawking radiation" to escape. In the years since, a number of alternative black hole models have emerged, where those smooth, perfect event horizons would be replaced with flimsier, fuzzier membranes. More recently, physicists have predicted that this fuzz would be particularly intense around newly formed black holes — substantial enough to reflect gravitational waves, producing an echo in the signal of a black hole's formation. Now, in the aftermath of the neutron star collision, two physicists think they've found that type of echo. They argue that a black hole that formed when the neutron stars merged is ringing like an echoing bell and shattering simple black hole physics.

If the echo is real, then it must be from the fuzz of a quantum black hole, said study co-author Niayesh Afshordi, a physicist at the University of Waterloo in Canada.

"In Einstein's theory of relativity, matter can orbit around black holes at large distances but should fall into the black hole close to the event horizon," Afshordi told Live Science.

So, close to the black hole, there shouldn't be any loose material to echo gravitational waves. Even black holes that surround themselves with disks of material should have an empty zone right around their event horizons, he said.

"The time delay we expect (and observe) for our echoes ... can only be explained if some quantum structure sits just outside their event horizons," Afshordi said.

That's a break from usually unshakable predictions of general relativity.

That said, data from existing gravitational wave detectors is noisy, difficult to properly interpret and prone to false positives. A gravitational wave echoing off some quantum fuzz around a black hole would be an entirely new sort of detection. But Afshordi said that in the immediate aftermath of the merger, that fuzz should have been intense enough to reflect gravitational waves so sharply that existing detectors could see it.

Joey Neilsen, an astrophysicist at Villanova University in Pennsylvania who wasn't involved in this paper, said that the result is compelling — particularly because the echoes turned up in more than one gravitational wave detector.

"That's more convincing than combing through data looking for a specific kind of signal and saying, 'aha!' when you find it," Neilsen told Live Science.

Still, he said, he'd need to see more information before he was absolutely convinced that the echoes were real. The paper doesn't account for other gravitational wave detections gathered within about 30 seconds of the reported echoes, Neilsen said.

"Because significance calculations are so sensitive to how you pick and choose your data, I would want to understand all those features more fully before I drew any firm conclusions," he said.

Maximiliano Isi, an astrophysicist at MIT, was skeptical.

"It is not the first claim of this nature coming from this group," he told Live Science.
"Unfortunately, other groups have been unable to reproduce their results, and not for lack of trying."

Isi pointed to a series of papers that failed to find echoes in the same data, one of which, published in June, he described as a "a more sophisticated, statistically robust analysis."

Afshordi said that this new paper of his has the advantage of being far more sensitive than previous work, with more robust models to detect fainter echoes., adding, "the finding that we reported... is the most statistically significant out of the dozen searches [I discussed], as it had the false alarm chance of roughly 2 out of 100,000."

Even if the echo is real, scientists still don't know precisely what sort of exotic astrophysical object produced the phenomenon, Neilsen added.

"What's so interesting about this case is that we don't have any idea what was left after the original merger: Did a black hole form right away, or was there some exotic, short-lived intermediate object?" Neilsen said. "The results here are easiest to make sense of if the remnant is a hypermassive [neutron star] that collapses within a second or so, but the echo presented here isn't convincing to me that that scenario is what actually happened."

It is possible there are echoes in the data, Isi said, which would be enormously significant. He's just not convinced yet.

Regardless of how all the data shakes out, Neilson said, it's clear the result here is pointing at something worth exploring further.

"Astrophysically, we're in uncharted territory, and that's really exciting." he said. The paper was published Nov. 13, 2019, in the Journal of Cosmology and Astroparticle Physics.


9 Ideas About Black Holes That Will Blow Your Mind
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8 Ways You Can See Einstein's Theory of Relativity in Real Life

Originally published on Live Science.

Founded by Frank Lloyd Wright, famed Taliesin school is closing

2020/1/28©Chicago Tribune
Interior of the classroom/drafting studio at Taliesin West. - Mike Siegel/Seattle Times/TNS

Founded by Frank Lloyd Wright during the Great Depression, the famous school of architecture that once bore his name will close at the end of June, the school announced Tuesday.

Called the School of Architecture at Taliesin and established by Wright and his wife Olgivanna in 1932, the accredited private graduate school offered a three-year master’s program that loomed large in the world of architecture because of its celebrated history and espousal of Wright’s philosophy of “organic architecture.”

Its early cohorts of students, known as “apprentices,” were part of what Wright and his wife called the Taliesin Fellowship. Initially located in Wright’s Taliesin compound in Spring Green, Wis., the school later expanded to Wright’s Taliesin West retreat in Scottsdale, Ariz.

Students rotated between the two Taliesins, spending the winter in Arizona. They served as both a source of income and labor for Wright during the bleak Depression years when building largely ground to a halt. Some later worked with the architect on such renowned projects as his spiraling Guggenheim Museum in New York.

“This is a sad and somber day for our school, our students and staff and the architecture community,” Dan Schweiker, chair of the school’s board of governors said in a news release issued Tuesday. The release added that the board made the “gut-wrenching” decision to close to the school on Saturday.

Schweiker added: “We did everything possible to fight for (the school’s) survival but due to other forces it was not meant to be.”

Schweiker did not elaborate. But the news release said the board was unable to reach an agreement with the Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation to keep the school open. The foundation, based in Scottsdale, owns the two Taliesin properties, which are open for public tours.

For its part, the foundation appeared to shift blame for the closing to the school’s board.

Leaders of the board told the foundation that the school “did not have a sustainable business model that would allow it to maintain its operations as an accredited program,” the foundation said in a news release.

But the school’s board did not approve a plan that would have allowed the school to develop new programs for which accreditation was not required and would have let second- and third-year students to finish their education, the foundation said.

“We are disappointed that (the plan) was not approved” by the school’s full board, Stuart Graff, the foundation’s president said.

In an email to the Chicago Tribune, the school’s president, Aaron Betsky, responded that the school had come up with a sustainable business model and accused the foundation of making unreasonable financial demands.

“The foundation offered us an ultimatum: Close by the end of July, or continue for one more year and one more year only, but only after giving up accreditation,” Betsky wrote.

In the wake of the decision to close the school, the foundation plans to expand educational programs, including K-12 teaching, adult education and programs for architects, preservation specialists and design professionals.

About 30 students are now enrolled at the school, according to its news release. The school is working out an agreement with a design school at Arizona State University that will let the students transfer credits to that school and get their degrees, it said in its news release.

Graff also promised to be sure that the shutdown “occurs in the best interests of the students.”

The decision to close the Taliesin school comes three years after it changed its name to the School of Architecture at Taliesin from the Frank Lloyd Wright School of Architecture and sought to gain financial independence from the foundation.

At the time, Betsky, then the school’s dean, said: “Adopting this new name … helps us secure our identity as an experimental, forward-looking architecture program rooted in the Taliesin Fellowship.”

The school’s closure comes at a time when the architect’s renown remains high.

Last year, the cultural arm of the United Nations placed eight Wright-designed buildings, including both Taliesin complexes as well as the Unity Temple in Oak Park, Ill., and Chicago’s Robie House, on the UNESCO World Heritage List, which honors sites of global cultural and natural significance.

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(Kamin is a Chicago Tribune critic.)

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©2020 Chicago Tribune

UAW reformers want to change how leaders are picked 

2020/1/28 ©Detroit Free Press

UAW president Gary Jones marches with Union workers in the Labor Day parade down Michigan Ave. Monday, Sept. 2, 2019 in Detroit, Mich. - Kirthmon F. Dozier/Detroit Free Press/TNS

A UAW group says it’s closing in on the support it needs from union locals to force a special convention that could lead to direct election of union leaders in response to anger over a long-standing corruption probe.

The group, Unite All Workers for Democracy, this week said 18 locals representing more than 40,000 workers have passed resolutions in favor of a special convention.

A key change being sought is a shift to direct election — “one member, one vote” rather than selection by delegates — of the union’s top leaders. The movement is fueled by anger at revelations from the federal corruption probe that has uncovered self-dealing and embezzlement by key union and auto company figures.

The group said it needs locals with a combined total membership of about 79,000 to pass resolutions in favor. The rules under the UAW constitution also require locals to be from at least five different states, which the release said the group has accomplished.

Justin Mayhugh, a founding member of the group and an activist in UAW Local 31 at General Motors’ Fairfax Assembly Plant in Kansas City, said the movement toward a special convention represents “a true display of solidarity” among locals.

“The membership understands how vital it is that they come together to take on the corruption at the highest levels of our union. Calling for a special convention to implement referendum voting of our International officers would be a historic step in the right direction. We are extremely hopeful that even more locals will pass Article 8 resolutions in the very near future,” Mayhugh said in a news release, encouraging interested members to reach out to the group through its website, www.uawd.org

Article 8 is the section of the UAW constitution where rules for establishing a special convention are described.

The group and its reform effort is a response to the federal corruption probe that so far has led to the downfall of past UAW President Gary Jones and former Region 5 Director Vance Pearson and charges against 13 and convictions of 11 former union leaders, members and Fiat Chrysler Automobiles officials. Jones has not been charged, but he has been implicated as an unnamed union official as part of a group accused of embezzling more than $1.5 million in union funds. Pearson is expected to plead guilty to charges of conspiracy to embezzle union funds and to use a facility of interstate commerce to aid a racketeering enterprise.

Angry membership

The scandal has angered many members and undercut the UAW’s historic image as a clean union. A Free Press story in November on the reform effort noted that the organizers were battling to convince members not to stop paying dues but to instead reform the union and work to avoid a government takeover.

The UAW leadership has highlighted a series of financial and ethical reforms aimed at rebuilding trust, and President Rory Gamble has pledged to leave his successors a clean union when he retires.

The UAW, which has more than 400,000 members, issued a statement noting its own reforms following a request for comment on the group’s efforts:

“Ultimately, the membership body makes these changes under the prescribed process for initiating, reviewing and voting on proposed changes. In the meantime, under the leadership of President Rory Gamble, working tirelessly with the board, the UAW continues to aggressively implement a series of critical reforms necessary to strengthen the union’s financial controls, oversight, and its overall accounting system.”

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©2020 Detroit Free Press

Northern Lights: Stunning time-lapse video captures newly discovered aurora
2020/1/28  ©Full Stack Media Inc
Table of Contents
The new Northern Lights
A cosmic puzzle


Scientists have never seen anything like this on Earth before.

By piecing together a series of images, amateur photographers and a group of astrophysicists have discovered a new kind of aurora — auroral dunes — adding a layer of complexity to the already incredible aurora borealis.

It marks the first observation of an extremely rare phenomenon that takes place in Earth’s mesosphere, and gives scientists an unprecedented window into an unexplored area of our planet’s upper atmosphere.

The discoverycame when the photographers and aurora enthusiasts noticed something weird while photographing the Northern Lightsin action. One auroral form did not fit into any of the established categories of auroras.

Watch the full time-lapse video to see this strange phenomena in action:

The photographers and researchers described their findings in a study published on Tuesday in the journal AGU Advances.
The new Northern Lights

The Northern Lights are a type of aurora, which are phenomena caused by bouts of space weather. As the Sun emits charged particles in the form of solar wind, they excite oxygen and nitrogen atoms in Earth’s ionized upper atmosphere, causing auroral emissions that result in the varying colors of light that we see in the skies here on Earth.

The Northern Lights aren't the only aurora visible on Earth — if you are in the southern hemisphere close to the South Pole, then you might catch sight of its sister aurora, the aurora australis, or the Southern Lights.

Auroras take different forms: They can appear as patches of light, arcs that curve across the sky, or as rays breaking through the sky — and each one has its own fingerprint.

But the newly discovered aurora — dubbed ‘a dune aurora’ due to its sand dune-like shape — did not fit into any of the established categories.

As the video shows, the formation looks like a green-tinged pattern of waves dancing across a relatively unexplored area which lies between the Earth’s atmosphere and the edge of space — the mesosphere — located some 50 kilometers above the planet's surface.

But in order to figure out what this new type of aurora was, the team first had to identify whereit was. And to do that, the researchers looked further out into space — to the stars.
A cosmic puzzle

To identify the aurora, the team first mapped the stars that could be seen behind the aurora. By working out their elevation, the team could use them as a point of reference, enabling them to calculate the altitude and other key characteristics of the new auroral phenomenon.

To their surprise, the auroral dunes occur at a relatively low altitude — 100 kilometers — in the upper parts of the mesosphere. The mesosphere is the part of Earth’s atmosphere located between the stratosphere and the thermosphere. Because this area lies where Earth’s atmosphere and space meet, it is extremely difficult for satellites to observe.

"Due to the difficulties in measuring the atmospheric phenomena occurring between 80 and 120 kilometres in altitude, we sometimes call this area 'the ignorosphere'," Minna Palmroth, professor at the University of Helsinki and lead author of the study, said.

The researchers aren't sure what causes dune auroras, but they have some theories. The unfamiliar pattern could either be the result of wave forms in the particles being emitted from the Sun during solar wind events. But they could also be to do with the density of oxygen atoms in Earth’s atmosphere.

Very rarely, a gravity wave rises up through the Earth's atmosphere. And in even rarer cases, these waves can be funneled between the boundary of the mesosphere and the thermosphere. When that happens, so the theory goes, dune auroras may occur when solar wind excites the oxygen atoms in the channel. That releases light — the green, sandy beach-like waves we can see here on Earth. More research will be needed to confirm whether that is the case, however.

The discovery came somewhat by accident: Palmroth had asked for the help of Northern Lights enthusiasts to gather images of the light display for a book she was writing, A guide for aurora borealis watchers, which was published in late 2018.

"It was like piecing together a puzzle or conducting detective work," Matti Helin, a Northern Lights hobbyist who was involved in the discovery, said in a statement. “Every day we found new images and came up with new ideas.”