NASA astronomers have presented a report about their observations of the Earth’s magnetic field. Scientists make observations with the help of the system of satellites THEMIS. One of the researchers Andreas Keiling (the University of California, Berkeley) said that with the help of satellite measurements it became possible to specify that solar wind on the dark side of our planet stretches Earth’s magnetic field as a rubber binder. When the stretching becomes too big, the binder quickly thins out and there is pike of colossal energy that strikes in the earth atmosphere.

At the moment of the strike two giant whirls of charged particles appear (‘two-horned lightning'), one of which is directed to the Earth. It reaches the ionosphere at the height of about 400 kilometers above the planet's surface and causes airglow that is polar lights. Scientists claim that they have managed to reveal the secret of this beautiful phenomenon. Observations from the Earth confirm that polar lights are synchronous with the stroke of a giant lightning.

The second whirl appears after the ionosphere counters the strike, i.e. polar lights always appear as a steam, ground surveillances also confirm that. The length of the giant whirls is about 70,000 kilometers (five times bigger than the diameter of our planet), and the strength of current in each channel reaches 100,000 amperes (current of the strength of only 0.1 amperes can lead to anomalies in human's body). The whirls originate every 3 hours.

Andreas Keiling has noticed that the performed research helps to understand phenomena that takes place in the magnetosphere, but doesn't give any hope to defend from them. In case of a catastrophic scenario if a giant whirl broke through the ionosphere, it would reach the Earth almost immediately. If the stroke of such a lightning hit Manhattan, then in 1.5 minutes all the power supply service of the East part of the USA would be paralised. The ionosphere has reflected all strokes of the giant lightning to this day. But nobody knows for how long this is going to continue.