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NASA Discovers a Long-Sought Global Electric Field on Earth

Discovering Earth’s third global energy Field. 🌀

A NASA-led rocket team has finally discovered the long-sought electric field driving particles from Earth’s atmosphere into space ‼️

First hypothesized over 60 years ago, it is “an agent of chaos” whose impacts are still not fully known: go.nasa.gov/3XcDDLD


An international team of scientists has successfully measured a planet-wide electric field thought to be as fundamental to Earth as its gravity and magnetic fields. Known as the ambipolar electric field, scientists first hypothesized over 60 years ago that it drove atmospheric escape above Earth’s North and South Poles. Measurements from a suborbital rocket have confirmed the existence of the ambipolar field and quantified its strength, revealing its role in driving atmospheric escape and shaping our ionosphere — a layer of the upper atmosphere — more broadly. The paper was published today in the journal Nature.

University of Texas opens robotics program up to incoming freshmen

The University of Texas at Austin this week announced that it has opened its undergraduate robotics program to high school applicants. The honors program is one of the first in the U.S. that allows incoming freshmen to apply for the program as part of their initial admission application. It’s a clear indication that robotics is no longer in the realm of hyper-specialized graduate and doctorate programs.

The minor is tied to a handful of other majors, including aerospace engineering, electrical and computer engineering, computational engineering, computer science and mechanical engineering. Each forms a foundational piece of an eventual robotics major. With the rise of robotics in high school STEAM teaching, the program is designed to maintain incoming freshmen’s interest in the growing space.

Senegal among new members of China’s ILRS moon base project

HELSINKI — Senegal’s space agency signed an agreement on cooperation on the International Lunar Research Station Thursday, swelling the ranks of the China-led project.

Maram Kaire, head of the Senegalese Space Study Agency (ASES) and Li Guoping, chief engineer of the China National Space Administration (CNSA) signed the agreement on cooperation in the International Lunar Research Station (ILRS) at the second international conference on deep space exploration (Tiandu) in Tunxi, Anhui province, Sept. 5.

The agreement came as Chinese President Xi Jinping held talks with Senegalese President Bassirou Diomaye Faye. The latter is visiting for the Beijing Summit of the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation (FOCAC) and a state visit.

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