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comment by am_Unition
am_Unition  ·  3462 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: Australian student proves the existence of plasma tubes floating above the Earth

This particular technique of mapping ionosphere to plasmasphere particle fluxes is huge.

Basically everyone in the magnetospheric community (which includes the plasmasphere) has been saying "We know we're seeing Oxygen (via observation) in the magnetotail lobe ('seeing' oxygen in the magnetotail is just one example of many), and the higher ratios (of Oxygen to Hydrogen) that we're seeing point to an Earth-borne source of Oxygen."

Meanwhile, the ionosphere people say "We know we have a net outflux/outflow of atmospheric constituents, but we're not sure of the exact spatial scale and geometry of these physics."

If this holds up, you can bet that we'll be using this particular ionosopheric sounding method on a wider scale in the near future.