Recently, NASA's THEMIS spacecraft detected a phenomenon that many astronomers had suspected; the spacequake. A spacequake happens when the Earth's magnetic field is stretched out by the solar wind - charged particles streaming from the Sun. The magnetic field becomes attenuated, stretching out away from the direction of the solar wind. At some point the field becomes too stretched and snaps back into place, producing quite a bit of energy which goes into the atmosphere and even the Earth's surface. Often spectacular aurora result from a spacequake.According to the article:"A spacequake is a temblor in Earth's magnetic field. It is felt most strongly in Earth orbit, but is not exclusive to space. The effects can reach all the way down to the surface of Earth itself. "Magnetic reverberations have been detected at ground stations all around the globe, much like seismic detectors measure a large earthquake," says THEMIS principal investigator Vassilis Angelopoulos of UCLA....(Read Full Post)