BEIJING: A team of Chinese scientists and their overseas counterparts have, for the first time, discovered lunar tidal signals in the Earth’s plasmasphere using data from multiple spacecrafts.
Scientists from Shandong University, the Institute of Geology and Geophysics of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, and other institutes jointly conducted the research work that was recently published in the journal Nature Physics.
According to the study, the lunar tide effects were observed in the Earth’s crust, oceans, neutral gas-dominated atmosphere and near-ground geomagnetic field.
However, it has still not been explored yet if a lunar tide effect existed in the plasma-dominated regions.
Xiao Chao, the paper’s co-first author, who is a researcher at Shandong University, said they made the recent findings by analysing data of past four decades from more than 10 satellites.
Lunar signal holds distinct diurnal: scientists
The scientists observed that the lunar tide-induced signal in the planet’s plasmasphere holds distinct diurnal and monthly periodicities, which are different from the semidiurnal and semimonthly variations dominant in the previously found lunar tide effects in other regions.
–APP
