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  • 25 Comments
Joined 1 year ago
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Cake day: September 22nd, 2023

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  • Key Points

    • A rocket team reports the first successful detection of Earth’s ambipolar electric field: a weak, planet-wide electric field as fundamental as Earth’s gravity and magnetic fields.
    • First hypothesized more than 60 years ago, the ambipolar electric field is a key driver of the “polar wind,” a steady outflow of charged particles into space that occurs above Earth’s poles.
    • This electric field lifts charged particles in our upper atmosphere to greater heights than they would otherwise reach and may have shaped our planet’s evolution in ways yet to be explored.

  • Interesting. I was brought up in the '80s and '90s thinking I belonged to the middle class. Tory-voting, Daily Express-reading, shares-owning parents, father a professional with his own business, living in a safe, blue seat.

    It took me many years to realise that I am in fact working-class. The social mobility my parents thought we had has been quickly disassembled for mine and following generations, and despite having a ‘good job’ with a reliable employer, I live hand to mouth and can never dream of even saving money, never mind investing in shares.

    From your post, I can now understand why my parents thought they were middle-class Tories, despite one of them growing up in a hugely deprived town with a very basic education and the other being an immigrant.