NASA scientists find "wormholes" in Earth's Magnetosphere

[Candlelight]

http://www.stuff.co.nz/science/7217840/X-marks-the-portal

Trekkies, you're in for a treat - once the stuff of science-fiction, the "portal", a gateway that connects two distant locations separated by spacetime, is no longer so fictional.
Nasa-funded research has found they do, kind of, exist and it is planning a mission in 2014 to study the phenomenon by sending four spacecrafts to spread out in Earth's magnetosphere.
University of Iowa plasma physicist Jack Scudder said the portals were called X-points or electron diffusion regions.
"They're places where the magnetic field of the Earth connects to the magnetic field of the sun, creating an uninterrupted path leading from our own planet to the sun's atmosphere 93 million miles away."
The portals were located tens of thousands of kilometres from Earth, where the geomagnetic field meets strong solar winds, some short-lived, others vast and sustained.
They opened and closed dozens of times each day. When open, energy particles can flow through the openings, heating Earth's upper atmosphere, sparking geomagnetic storms, and igniting bright polar auroras.

Cool. Who wants to be a prophet?

 

[gturner]

It's perhaps related to weird holes in the magnetosphere of Mercury.

 

[Captain_Nick]

That article keeps referring to 'portals', but what are they? Wormholes to the sun? Rents in space time? Or just strong magnetic fields that lead towards the sun?

 

[Data Holmes]

That article keeps referring to 'portals', but what are they? Wormholes to the sun? Rents in space time? Or just strong magnetic fields that lead towards the sun?

Solar Highway? Perhaps these "portals" can be used, if not for physical travel, for faster communication times.

 

[M'Sharak]

That article keeps referring to 'portals', but what are they? Wormholes to the sun? Rents in space time? Or just strong magnetic fields that lead towards the sun?

Watch the video:

http://www.nasa.gov/multimedia/videogallery/index.html?collection_id=15504&media_id=147651841

It explains what is currently known about the phenomenon and how the new probes will be used in an effort to increase our knowledge and understanding.

 

[RoJoHen]

Sounds too much like Donnie Darko.