Aussie student, Cleo Loi, proves existence of plasma tubes floating above Earth

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It's not sci-fi nor a conspiracy theory!

It’s a finding that was initially met with a considerable degree of scepticism within the field of astrophysics, but a University of Sydney undergraduate student Cleo Loi, 23, has proven that the phenomenon exists.
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By using a radio telescope in the West Australian outback to see space in 3D, Ms Loi has proven that the Earth’s atmosphere is embedded with these strangely shaped, tubular plasma structures. The complex, multilayered ducts are created by the atmosphere being ionised by sunlight.

Scientists have long thought that the interaction of the earth's magnetic field with energy from the sun would create huge tubes of plasma. But they have never been able to directly observe them over large scales or determine their shape. Until now.

While still an undergraduate, Cleo Loi, 23, used the Murchison Wide Field Array in the Western Australia desert in a way that no other radio telescope has been used before.

The wide field array consists of 128 antenna "tiles" over a seven-square-kilometre area. Ms Loi divided the array's tiles into two halves using the western half like a right eye and the eastern half like a left eye. Similar to the way humans use sight, she used triangulation to build a three-dimensional dynamic map of the plasma tubes over a large area.

Ms Loi, who graduated in March, had to overcome the initial scepticism of senior colleagues who thought her observations were too good to be true.

Her undergraduate supervisor, Dr Tara Murphy, said: "It is to Cleo's great credit that she not only discovered this but also convinced the rest of the scientific community. As an undergraduate student with no prior background in this, that is an impressive achievement.

"When they first saw the data, many of her senior collaborators thought the results were literally 'too good to be true' and that the observation process had somehow corrupted the findings. But over the next few months, Cleo managed to convince them that they were both real and scientifically interesting."

Cleo Loi goes on to explain the significance and findings in the video:

Ms Loi was lead author on this research, undertaken as part of her award-winning undergraduate thesis and published in Geophysical Research Letters on Monday.

Ms Loi won the Australian Astronomical Society's 2015 Bok Prize for her research. Ms Loi, who went to James Ruse High School, will move to Cambridge this year to begin her PhD in astrophysics.

[Tradewind]

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