Aurora articles within Nature Communications

Featured

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Mesospheric ghosts are rare, faint, greenish transient luminous events. Here, the authors show metallic emissions revealed by the spectrum of a mesospheric ghost.

    • María Passas-Varo
    • , Oscar Van der Velde
    •  & Joan Montanyà
  • Article
    | Open Access

    Although whistler-mode chorus waves are common in the Earth’s and other planetary magnetospheres, the mechanism behind fast frequency chirping is debated. Here, the authors show the presence of chorus emissions at Mars, with fundamentally the same nonlinear nature as those at Earth, despite vastly different magnetic and plasma conditions.

    • Shangchun Teng
    • , Yifan Wu
    •  & Xin Tao
  • Article
    | Open Access

    Scattering by the upper- and lower-band chorus waves are the dominant cause of diffuse auroral precipitation. Here, the authors show that the lower-band chorus alone satisfies the preferred condition for the generation of second harmonics to trigger the diffuse auroral electron precipitation.

    • Xiongdong Yu
    • , Zhigang Yuan
    •  & H. O. Funsten
  • Article
    | Open Access

    Energetic electron densities in the radiation belt increases during geomagnetic storms. Here, the authors show oblique whistler mode waves enhance electron losses and create strong fluxes of about 100 keV electrons precipitating into the atmosphere, that should be considered in radiation belt models.

    • Xiao-Jia Zhang
    • , Anton Artemyev
    •  & Ayako Matsuoka
  • Article
    | Open Access

    It was predicted that Alfvén waves can account for the acceleration of precipitating auroral electrons. Here, the authors show laboratory measurements of the resonant transfer of energy from Alfvén waves to electrons under conditions relevant to the auroral zone as a direct test.

    • J. W. R. Schroeder
    • , G. G. Howes
    •  & S. Dorfman
  • Article
    | Open Access

    During geomagnetic substorms, the energy accumulated from solar wind is abruptly transported to ionosphere. Here, the authors show application of community detection on the time-varying networks constructed from all magnetometers collaborating with the SuperMAG initiative.

    • L. Orr
    • , S. C. Chapman
    •  & W. Guo
  • Article
    | Open Access

    Hurricanes in the Earth’s low atmosphere are known, but not detected in the upper atmosphere earlier. Here, the authors show a long-lasting hurricane in the polar ionosphere and magnetosphere with large energy and momentum deposition despite otherwise extremely quiet conditions.

    • Qing-He Zhang
    • , Yong-Liang Zhang
    •  & Li-Dong Xia
  • Article
    | Open Access

    Seasonally averaged energy input into the ionosphere from geospace is generally considered to be symmetric. Here, the authors show preference for electromagnetic energy input at 450 km altitude into the northern hemisphere, on both the dayside and the nightside, when averaged over season.

    • I. P. Pakhotin
    • , I. R. Mann
    •  & D. J. Knudsen
  • Article
    | Open Access

    Theoretical studies suggested that plasmapause surface waves related to the sharp inhomogeneity exist and act as a source of geomagnetic pulsations. Here, the authors show direct observations of a plasmapause surface wave and its impacts during a geomagnetic storm using multi-satellite and ground-based observations.

    • Fei He
    • , Rui-Long Guo
    •  & Wei-Xing Wan
  • Article
    | Open Access

    Electron precipitation plays major role in magnetospheric physics and space weather. Here the authors show nonlinear behavior of the wave–particle interaction in the magnetosphere as the evolution of chorus electromagnetic waves detected by the Arase satellite and PWING observatory.

    • Mitsunori Ozaki
    • , Yoshizumi Miyoshi
    •  & Iku Shinohara