Real-Life Bermuda Triangle
A narrow ribbon of current that's said to be flowing across the equatorial region of the Earth’s ionosphere is called the equatorial electrojet. The identified stream of electrons and ions has been known for decades but a new research has proven that the region is merely sensitive to mild shock waves in the solar wind.
“Earth’s magnetic field is like an umbrella on a windy day, As the wind changes the umbrella flops around.” - Brett Carter, a space physicist at RMIT University’s SPACE Research Centre
It just shows that the earth’s protective magnetic field has few soft spots. And to add up to the theory, when solar winds ramp up, there are large geomagnetic storms which can be formed to knock out whole power grids. However, no one was able to suspect that equatorial regions might also be vulnerable. It was calculated that smaller space og storms can be the cause of equatorial electrojet to amp up intensely. This was speculated to be capable of significantly disrupting power grids in places like Africa, South America and Southeast Asia.
You might ask why it took some time before a group of scientists to identify this claim. The reason for this phenomenon to not be identified quickly was that Western scientists don’t have a lot of data from power companies in equatorial regions.
“We’re trying to make connections to African countries, It’s still largely to be explored.” - Antti Pulkkinen, a research astrophysicist at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center
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