Hi Liliana. Welcome to GeoTalk! Can you tell us a bit about yourself and your background? Hi, I was born in the highlands in Peru. This gave me the advantage of living more in contact with nature. Since I remember, I was fascinated about the shape of the clouds, the sounds of the wind in the mountains or trees, the sounds of the rain and what they do to our surrounding; the lightning flashes and t ...[Read More]
GeoTalk: meet Martin Archer, Space Physicist and Outreach expert!
Hi Martin. Thank you for joining me for this interview! To start, could you please tell our readers a bit about yourself and your research interests? I’m a space plasma physicist at Imperial College London, studying how the interaction between the solar wind and our magnetosphere leads to a huge amount of dynamics and waves that play a role in space weather. I’m also the Chair of EGU’s Outreach Co ...[Read More]
Imaggeo On Monday: Space plasma in a jar
Laboratory visualisation of solar wind interaction with Earth’s magnetic field. The Van Allen radiation belt, Earth’s magnetosphere, “bow shock” and a solar coronal hole can all be seen, and are emphasized with the ‘Planeterrella experiment‘, a vacuum chamber in the shape of a bell jar with the ‘Sun’ on the left (in the form of a large metallic sphere) and the ‘Earth& ...[Read More]
Imaggeo on Mondays: How do Earth’s Northern Lights form?
Aurora Borealis, which means Northern Lights are caused by electrically charged particles from the sun, which enter the Earth’s atmosphere and collide with gases such as oxygen and nitrogen. When the charged particles are blown towards the Earth by the solar wind, they are largely deflected by the Earth’s magnetic field. However, the Earth’s magnetic field is weaker at the poles and therefore some ...[Read More]