Welcome to the latest installment of “Writer Fuel – cool real-world stories that might inspire your little writer heart. Check out our Writer Fuel page on the LimFic blog for more inspiration. Today:
Four brand-new alien planets have potentially been discovered after scientists detected the shimmering radio flashes of auroras in those planets’ atmospheres, a new study says.
Auroras occur when solar wind — intense gusts of electric particles belched out by the sun — smash into a planet’s magnetic shield. Earth experiences auroras near the north and south poles, where miraculous displays of color and light streak through the evening sky.
But this pleasant light show is only a piece of the story; astronomers know that the cosmic clash of solar wind and magnetic fields also produces bright flashes of radio light that can be seen far across the galaxy. To an alien observer hundreds of light-years away, the auroras of Earth may look like sudden, bright explosions of radio energy.
