Magnetic reconnection—a process in which the magnetic field lines of Earth and the sun snap together, releasing bursts of radiation—is also thought to be linked to chorus waves, supplying some of the high-energy particles that the waves can then essentially supercharge. Liu’s results suggest this process is taking place “rather far away from Earth,” Omura says. This linkage may mean that closely monitoring the incoming solar wind could help scientists better predict the production of chorus waves around Earth and other planets, potentially improving
space weather forecasts.
That means understanding chorus waves could be crucial for ensuring future missions to
the moon,
Mars and
other deep-space destinations aren’t embarking on doomed swan songs. “If you’re pumping electrons up to very high energies, you want to know, for crewed spaceflight and spacecraft assets, how many of these killer electrons are in the magnetosphere,” Jaynes says. “Chorus waves are very important to understand that.” Knowing more about them could tell us more about when it is safe to fly in these regions of space. “We want to predict when and where they’re going to happen,” Ratliff says, “so that we know when and where it might be too dangerous for operations.”
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