NASA has made a groundbreaking discovery, confirming the existence of Earth’s third energy field, known as the ‘Polar Wind.’ Previously only a theoretical concept, this elusive energy field has finally been identified after a six-decade-long search. Glyn Collinson, the principal investigator of NASA’s Endurance mission at the Goddard Space Flight Center in Maryland, described this discovery as fundamental to understanding how our planet operates. Collinson noted that, while weak, this energy field has been present alongside gravity and magnetism since Earth’s formation. Its significance lies in its ability to counteract gravity and lift Earth’s skies.
The scientific team believes the Polar Wind holds key answers to how Earth’s atmosphere dissipates rapidly over the polar regions. They theorize that this field could have played an essential role in shaping the uppermost layers of the atmosphere.
The foundation for this discovery was laid back in the 1960s when spacecraft flying over Earth’s poles observed streams of particles escaping into space at supersonic speeds. While scientists knew sunlight caused some particles to leak into space, they couldn’t explain how these unheated particles were drawn from the atmosphere. Collinson theorized that another force had to be at work, but the technology required to detect a large-scale energy field wasn’t available at the time.
The breakthrough came from NASA’s Endurance mission, which used a suborbital rocket to measure this vast, planet-wide electric field. These measurements confirmed the presence of the ambipolar field, which NASA now recognizes as a driver of atmospheric escape and a key player in shaping the ionosphere—the upper layer of Earth’s atmosphere.
The discovery was made possible through extensive sensor development, a process that began in 2016 in preparation for the Endurance rocket mission. On May 11, 2022, a suborbital rocket was launched from Svalbard, a Norwegian archipelago, the only location where researchers could fly through the Polar Wind and gather the necessary data. Suzie Imber, a space physicist from the University of Leicester and co-author of the study, highlighted the importance of Svalbard in this mission.
The mission revealed that hydrogen ions, which dominate the Polar Wind, are propelled into space by an electric field that is over ten times stronger than Earth’s gravity. Additionally, the study found that this ambipolar field increases the density of the ionosphere by 271%, keeping it more substantial at higher altitudes.
According to Collinson, this field operates like a conveyor belt, lifting atmospheric particles into space. This discovery opens new opportunities for research, particularly in exploring how energy fields on other planets with atmospheres, such as Venus and Mars, may have shaped the evolution of their atmospheres, offering critical insights into Earth’s atmospheric history.