Physics undergrad confirms existence of large plasma ducts in Earth’s atmosphere

Sydney Morning Herald : For the first time, huge tubes of plasma have been directly observed in Earth’s atmosphere. Sydney University student Cleo Loi and colleagues used the Murchison Widefield Array in Western Australia to image the phenomenon, which until now had only been theorized to exist. Loi divided the array’s 128 antenna tiles into two halves and used triangulation to create a three-dimensional map of the structures. The plasma tubes result from the ionization of Earth’s atmosphere by sunlight, which creates a complex, multilayered plasma that aligns into cylindrical shapes along Earth’s magnetic field, according to the researchers’ paper published in Geophysical Research Letters. Understanding the structure of Earth’s atmosphere is important because the plasma ducts can distort radio signals coming from quasars, black holes, and other astronomical structures and can also affect satellite-based navigation systems.