Evidence of plasma lunar tide in the Earth-Moon system

preprint OA: closed
Full text JSON View at publisher
AI-generated summary by claude@2026-07, 2026-07-15

This study presents the first evidence of a lunar tide signal in the Earth's plasmasphere, observed as boundary variations with diurnal and monthly periodicities.

One-sentence paraphrase of the abstract; not a substitute for reading it. No clinical advice. How this works

AI-generated deep summary by claude@2026-07, 2026-07-15 · read from full text

This preprint studies whether lunar tidal effects extend into plasma-dominated regions by analyzing multi-satellite observations of the plasmasphere boundary over the past four decades. The authors report a direct lunar tide signal characterized by distinct diurnal and monthly periodicities, with boundary perturbations of up to ~800 km attributed to disturbing the electric field. They note that these periodicities differ from the semidiurnal and semimonthly variations dominant in the solid Earth, ocean, and atmosphere/ionosphere. This paper is not specifically about endometriosis or adenomyosis; it was included in the corpus via a keyword match in the upstream search index.

Read from the paper's body, not the abstract. Not a substitute for reading the paper. No clinical advice. How this works

Abstract

Abstract Tides are universal, significantly affecting spatially distributed systems, from planetary to galactic scales. In the Earth-Moon system, lunar tides have been studied in the solid Earth, liquid ocean, and neutral gas-dominated atmosphere (including the ionosphere). However, whether a lunar tide effect exists over wider plasma dominated regions has remained unexplored until now. Here we show direct evidence of a lunar tide signal in the plasmasphere, a typical cold “plasma ocean” in the Earth-Moon space, by analyzing variations in its boundary location over the past four decades from multi-satellite observations. This signal possesses distinct diurnal (and monthly) periodicities, surprisingly different from the semidiurnal (and semimonthly) variations dominant in the atmosphere, ocean, and solid Earth, with tidal surface perturbations of up to ~800 km via disturbing the electric field. These results demonstrate the importance of lunar tidal effects in plasma dominated regions of Earth-moon space, opening new perspectives for understanding Moon-atmosphere-magnetosphere coupling process through gravity and electromagnetic forces, and has implications for tidal interactions in other two-body celestial systems.
Full text 17,484 characters · extracted from preprint-html · click to expand
Evidence of plasma lunar tide in the Earth-Moon system | Research Square window.SnipcartSettings = { analytics: { enabled: false } }; (function() { var accessVector = localStorage.getItem('access_vector') || ''; window.dataLayer = window.dataLayer || []; if (accessVector) { window.dataLayer.push({ user: { profile: { profileInfo: { snid: accessVector } } } }); } })(); (function(w,d,s,l,i){w[l]=w[l]||[];w[l].push({'gtm.start':new Date().getTime(),event:'gtm.js'});var f=d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0],j=d.createElement(s),dl=l!='dataLayer'?'&l='+l:'';j.async=true;j.src='https://www.googletagmanager.com/gtm.js?id='+i+dl;f.parentNode.insertBefore(j,f);})(window,document,'script','dataLayer','GTM-K279D39R'); Browse Preprints In Review Journals COVID-19 Preprints AJE Video Bytes Research Tools Research Promotion AJE Professional Editing AJE Rubriq About Preprint Platform In Review Editorial Policies Our Team Advisory Board Help Center Sign In Submit a Preprint Cite Share Download PDF Letter Evidence of plasma lunar tide in the Earth-Moon system Chao Xiao, Fei He, Quanqi Shi, Wenlong Liu, Anmin Tian, Ruilong Guo, and 15 more This is a preprint; it has not been peer reviewed by a journal. https://doi.org/ 10.21203/rs.3.rs-1474794/v1 This work is licensed under a CC BY 4.0 License Status: Published Journal Publication published 26 Jan, 2023 Read the published version in Nature Physics → Version 1 posted You are reading this latest preprint version Abstract Tides are universal, significantly affecting spatially distributed systems, from planetary to galactic scales. In the Earth-Moon system, lunar tides have been studied in the solid Earth, liquid ocean, and neutral gas-dominated atmosphere (including the ionosphere). However, whether a lunar tide effect exists over wider plasma dominated regions has remained unexplored until now. Here we show direct evidence of a lunar tide signal in the plasmasphere, a typical cold “plasma ocean” in the Earth-Moon space, by analyzing variations in its boundary location over the past four decades from multi-satellite observations. This signal possesses distinct diurnal (and monthly) periodicities, surprisingly different from the semidiurnal (and semimonthly) variations dominant in the atmosphere, ocean, and solid Earth, with tidal surface perturbations of up to ~800 km via disturbing the electric field. These results demonstrate the importance of lunar tidal effects in plasma dominated regions of Earth-moon space, opening new perspectives for understanding Moon-atmosphere-magnetosphere coupling process through gravity and electromagnetic forces, and has implications for tidal interactions in other two-body celestial systems. Full Text Additional Declarations There is NO Competing Interest. Supplementary Files MovieS1Lunartide.gif Movie_S1_Lunar_Tide SupplementaryInformation.pdf Cite Share Download PDF Status: Published Journal Publication published 26 Jan, 2023 Read the published version in Nature Physics → Version 1 posted You are reading this latest preprint version Research Square lets you share your work early, gain feedback from the community, and start making changes to your manuscript prior to peer review in a journal. As a division of Research Square Company, we’re committed to making research communication faster, fairer, and more useful. We do this by developing innovative software and high quality services for the global research community. Our growing team is made up of researchers and industry professionals working together to solve the most critical problems facing scientific publishing. Also discoverable on Platform About Our Team In Review Editorial Policies Advisory Board Help Center Resources Author Services Accessibility API Access RSS feed Manage Cookie Preferences © Research Square 2026 | ISSN 2693-5015 (online) Privacy Policy Terms of Service Do Not Sell My Personal Information {"props":{"pageProps":{"initialData":{"identity":"rs-1474794","acceptedTermsAndConditions":true,"allowDirectSubmit":false,"archivedVersions":[],"articleType":"Letter","associatedPublications":[],"authors":[{"id":96659390,"identity":"38690fc6-9560-419f-bd7c-097c5593f1fd","order_by":0,"name":"Chao Xiao","email":"","orcid":"","institution":"Chinese Ministry of Education Key Laboratory of Particle Physics and Particle Irradiation, Institute of Space Sciences, Shandong University","correspondingAuthor":false,"prefix":"","firstName":"Chao","middleName":"","lastName":"Xiao","suffix":""},{"id":96659391,"identity":"639654b8-4bfb-402d-9af9-3c7f42fe1968","order_by":1,"name":"Fei He","email":"","orcid":"https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0542-2686","institution":"Institute of Geology and Geophysics, Chinese Academy of Sciences","correspondingAuthor":false,"prefix":"","firstName":"Fei","middleName":"","lastName":"He","suffix":""},{"id":96659392,"identity":"2f26ce60-e4f0-46b2-ade9-337c1eb84a2a","order_by":2,"name":"Quanqi Shi","email":"data:image/png;base64,iVBORw0KGgoAAAANSUhEUgAAAZAAAAAyAQMAAABI0h/eAAAABlBMVEX///8AAABVwtN+AAAACXBIWXMAAA7EAAAOxAGVKw4bAAAAqUlEQVRIiWNgGAWjYHACxgcMB0B0AvFamA1I1sImQZoW+fbkbdUFZw4z8LPnGDD83EGEFoMzz8puz7hxmEGy540BY+8ZYrRI5Jjd5vlwmMHgRo4BM2MbMQ6bkWNWDNJiT7QWhhs5Zsw8QIcBrSNSC9AvxdIzzqTzSJx5VnCwlyiHtSdv/FxwzFqOH8h48JMohzEkGDADSR4Q8wBRGmBaRsEoGAWjYBTgBgCvTDZI9VFUtwAAAABJRU5ErkJggg==","orcid":"","institution":"Shandong University","correspondingAuthor":true,"prefix":"","firstName":"Quanqi","middleName":"","lastName":"Shi","suffix":""},{"id":96659393,"identity":"0160f3bc-2ecb-44b5-8124-2d7110c46cb2","order_by":3,"name":"Wenlong Liu","email":"","orcid":"https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7991-5067","institution":"Beihang University","correspondingAuthor":false,"prefix":"","firstName":"Wenlong","middleName":"","lastName":"Liu","suffix":""},{"id":96659394,"identity":"52b455dc-d20a-4c85-9f9b-76ebb555c54f","order_by":4,"name":"Anmin Tian","email":"","orcid":"","institution":"Chinese Ministry of Education Key Laboratory of Particle Physics and Particle Irradiation, Institute of Space Sciences, Shandong University","correspondingAuthor":false,"prefix":"","firstName":"Anmin","middleName":"","lastName":"Tian","suffix":""},{"id":96659395,"identity":"72c5b6f8-59b9-402a-9749-76d89ed33fec","order_by":5,"name":"Ruilong Guo","email":"","orcid":"","institution":"Chinese Ministry of Education Key Laboratory of Particle Physics and Particle Irradiation, Institute of Space Sciences, Shandong University","correspondingAuthor":false,"prefix":"","firstName":"Ruilong","middleName":"","lastName":"Guo","suffix":""},{"id":96659396,"identity":"ec0a2f45-c8b9-4e7a-9db1-f3ec81c4f7a9","order_by":6,"name":"C. Yue","email":"","orcid":"https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9720-5210","institution":"Institute of Space Physics and Applied Technology, Peking University","correspondingAuthor":false,"prefix":"","firstName":"C.","middleName":"","lastName":"Yue","suffix":""},{"id":96659397,"identity":"44eb6d7a-fed5-4886-9ec1-7e4d54f59e55","order_by":7,"name":"Xu-Zhi Zhou","email":"","orcid":"","institution":"Peking University","correspondingAuthor":false,"prefix":"","firstName":"Xu-Zhi","middleName":"","lastName":"Zhou","suffix":""},{"id":96659398,"identity":"5df508db-74b2-4e9d-ba9c-48f253ef5bef","order_by":8,"name":"Yong Wei","email":"","orcid":"https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7183-0229","institution":"Institute of Geology and Geophysics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, China.","correspondingAuthor":false,"prefix":"","firstName":"Yong","middleName":"","lastName":"Wei","suffix":""},{"id":96659399,"identity":"0361b2c2-d201-4e10-aa22-64cc7b705081","order_by":9,"name":"Ian Rae","email":"","orcid":"","institution":"Northumbria University","correspondingAuthor":false,"prefix":"","firstName":"Ian","middleName":"","lastName":"Rae","suffix":""},{"id":96659400,"identity":"60db32f6-bae1-4184-ad93-cbd8b33a3f13","order_by":10,"name":"Degeling Alexander William","email":"","orcid":"","institution":"Shandong Provincial Key Laboratory of Optical Astronomy and Solar-Terrestrial Environment, Institute of Space Sciences, Shandong University at Weihai","correspondingAuthor":false,"prefix":"","firstName":"Degeling","middleName":"Alexander","lastName":"William","suffix":""},{"id":96659401,"identity":"346ba109-19de-48a3-b794-cfdf02b78be4","order_by":11,"name":"Vassilis Angelopoulos","email":"","orcid":"https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7024-1561","institution":"University of California Los Angeles","correspondingAuthor":false,"prefix":"","firstName":"Vassilis","middleName":"","lastName":"Angelopoulos","suffix":""},{"id":96659402,"identity":"a59fa043-a571-4f6d-9195-15f227a73852","order_by":12,"name":"Emmanuel Masongsong","email":"","orcid":"","institution":"Department of Earth, Planetary and Space Sciences, Institute of Geophysics and Space Physics, University of California, Los Angeles","correspondingAuthor":false,"prefix":"","firstName":"Emmanuel","middleName":"","lastName":"Masongsong","suffix":""},{"id":96659403,"identity":"1d676f06-9ac8-4029-b957-5640f4ddbcd1","order_by":13,"name":"Ji Liu","email":"","orcid":"","institution":"Department of Physics, University of Alberta","correspondingAuthor":false,"prefix":"","firstName":"Ji","middleName":"","lastName":"Liu","suffix":""},{"id":96659404,"identity":"979f9ef6-b64c-448b-9c24-ba514269eb95","order_by":14,"name":"Qiu-Gang Zong","email":"","orcid":"","institution":"School of Earth and Space Sciences, Peking University","correspondingAuthor":false,"prefix":"","firstName":"Qiu-Gang","middleName":"","lastName":"Zong","suffix":""},{"id":96659405,"identity":"63bc1fc8-a1d1-4360-9615-32b20f07cd55","order_by":15,"name":"Suiyan Fu","email":"","orcid":"","institution":"School of Earth and Space Sciences, Peking University","correspondingAuthor":false,"prefix":"","firstName":"Suiyan","middleName":"","lastName":"Fu","suffix":""},{"id":96659406,"identity":"25b5e9fd-41ce-49d0-9c1e-997364f8a1e1","order_by":16,"name":"Zuyin Pu","email":"","orcid":"","institution":"Peking University","correspondingAuthor":false,"prefix":"","firstName":"Zuyin","middleName":"","lastName":"Pu","suffix":""},{"id":96659407,"identity":"7dc967bf-be82-4b4f-bc79-b389c25f4213","order_by":17,"name":"Xiaoxin Zhang","email":"","orcid":"","institution":"Key Laboratory of Space Weather, National Center for Space Weather, China Meteorological Administration","correspondingAuthor":false,"prefix":"","firstName":"Xiaoxin","middleName":"","lastName":"Zhang","suffix":""},{"id":96659408,"identity":"f8913d0d-43ed-4290-85a5-e4036f2843f3","order_by":18,"name":"Tieyan Wang","email":"","orcid":"","institution":"School of Space and Environment, Beihang University","correspondingAuthor":false,"prefix":"","firstName":"Tieyan","middleName":"","lastName":"Wang","suffix":""},{"id":96659409,"identity":"3d79fb24-b558-4633-bee5-b220d62d5596","order_by":19,"name":"Huizi Wang","email":"","orcid":"","institution":"Shandong Provincial Key Laboratory of Optical Astronomy and Solar-Terrestrial Environment, Institute of Space Sciences, Shandong University","correspondingAuthor":false,"prefix":"","firstName":"Huizi","middleName":"","lastName":"Wang","suffix":""},{"id":96659410,"identity":"c16d4294-9b14-4094-b345-d5168bd3d35a","order_by":20,"name":"Zhao Zhang","email":"","orcid":"","institution":"School of Space and Environment, Beihang University","correspondingAuthor":false,"prefix":"","firstName":"Zhao","middleName":"","lastName":"Zhang","suffix":""}],"badges":[],"createdAt":"2022-03-21 17:40:39","currentVersionCode":1,"declarations":"","doi":"10.21203/rs.3.rs-1474794/v1","doiUrl":"https://doi.org/10.21203/rs.3.rs-1474794/v1","draftVersion":[],"editorialEvents":[{"content":"https://doi.org/10.1038/s41567-022-01882-8","type":"published","date":"2023-01-26T05:00:00+00:00"}],"editorialNote":"","failedWorkflow":false,"files":[{"id":20034636,"identity":"495592a6-7ad1-4a93-9bb1-920614459094","added_by":"auto","created_at":"2022-04-06 17:22:53","extension":"pdf","order_by":1,"title":"","display":"","copyAsset":false,"role":"manuscript-pdf","size":5835350,"visible":true,"origin":"","legend":"","description":"","filename":"ManuscriptNPLunarTidalSignalinthePlasmasphere.pdf","url":"https://assets-eu.researchsquare.com/files/rs-1474794/v1_covered.pdf"},{"id":20034634,"identity":"f5df0984-f736-469a-af9e-f1ea451da4dd","added_by":"auto","created_at":"2022-04-06 17:22:40","extension":"gif","order_by":1,"title":"","display":"","copyAsset":false,"role":"supplement","size":211763,"visible":true,"origin":"","legend":"Movie_S1_Lunar_Tide","description":"","filename":"MovieS1Lunartide.gif","url":"https://assets-eu.researchsquare.com/files/rs-1474794/v1/1c7cf1880810a48686c79d95.gif"},{"id":20034635,"identity":"9aa44dca-8e77-4b86-b0f6-4d3dc7780a74","added_by":"auto","created_at":"2022-04-06 17:22:40","extension":"pdf","order_by":2,"title":"","display":"","copyAsset":false,"role":"supplement","size":943533,"visible":true,"origin":"","legend":"","description":"","filename":"SupplementaryInformation.pdf","url":"https://assets-eu.researchsquare.com/files/rs-1474794/v1/24fcbf6b2de877f4379833c5.pdf"}],"financialInterests":"There is \u003cb\u003eNO\u003c/b\u003e Competing Interest.","formattedTitle":"Evidence of plasma lunar tide in the Earth-Moon system","fulltext":[{"header":"Full Text","content":"This preprint is available for \u003ca href='/article/rs-1474794/latest.pdf' target='_blank'\u003edownload as a PDF\u003c/a\u003e."}],"fulltextSource":"","fullText":"","funders":[],"hasAdminPriorityOnWorkflow":false,"hasManuscriptDocX":false,"hasOptedInToPreprint":true,"hasPassedJournalQc":"","hasAnyPriority":true,"hideJournal":false,"highlight":"","institution":"","isAcceptedByJournal":true,"isAuthorSuppliedPdf":true,"isDeskRejected":"","isHiddenFromSearch":false,"isInQc":false,"isInWorkflow":false,"isPdf":false,"isPdfUpToDate":true,"isWithdrawnOrRetracted":false,"journal":{"display":true,"email":"[email protected]","identity":"nature-portfolio","isNatureJournal":true,"hasQc":false,"allowDirectSubmit":false,"externalIdentity":"","sideBox":"","snPcode":"","submissionUrl":"","title":"Nature Portfolio","twitterHandle":"","acdcEnabled":false,"dfaEnabled":false,"editorialSystem":"ejp","reportingPortfolio":"","inReviewEnabled":true,"inReviewRevisionsEnabled":false},"keywords":"","lastPublishedDoi":"10.21203/rs.3.rs-1474794/v1","lastPublishedDoiUrl":"https://doi.org/10.21203/rs.3.rs-1474794/v1","license":{"name":"CC BY 4.0","url":"https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/"},"manuscriptAbstract":"Tides are universal, significantly affecting spatially distributed systems, from planetary to galactic scales. In the Earth-Moon system, lunar tides have been studied in the solid Earth, liquid ocean, and neutral gas-dominated atmosphere (including the ionosphere). However, whether a lunar tide effect exists over wider plasma dominated regions has remained unexplored until now. Here we show direct evidence of a lunar tide signal in the plasmasphere, a typical cold “plasma ocean” in the Earth-Moon space, by analyzing variations in its boundary location over the past four decades from multi-satellite observations. This signal possesses distinct diurnal (and monthly) periodicities, surprisingly different from the semidiurnal (and semimonthly) variations dominant in the atmosphere, ocean, and solid Earth, with tidal surface perturbations of up to ~800 km via disturbing the electric field. These results demonstrate the importance of lunar tidal effects in plasma dominated regions of Earth-moon space, opening new perspectives for understanding Moon-atmosphere-magnetosphere coupling process through gravity and electromagnetic forces, and has implications for tidal interactions in other two-body celestial systems.","manuscriptTitle":"Evidence of plasma lunar tide in the Earth-Moon system","msid":"","msnumber":"","nonDraftVersions":[{"code":1,"date":"2022-04-06 17:22:38","doi":"10.21203/rs.3.rs-1474794/v1","editorialEvents":[],"status":"published","journal":{"display":true,"email":"[email protected]","identity":"nature-physics","isNatureJournal":true,"hasQc":false,"allowDirectSubmit":false,"externalIdentity":"nphys","sideBox":"Learn more about [Nature Physics](http://www.nature.com/nphys/)","snPcode":"","submissionUrl":"","title":"Nature Physics","twitterHandle":"","acdcEnabled":true,"dfaEnabled":true,"editorialSystem":"ejp","reportingPortfolio":"Nature Research","inReviewEnabled":true,"inReviewRevisionsEnabled":false}}],"origin":"","ownerIdentity":"d2191f9a-c0a8-48d4-bded-7405af5676ae","owner":[],"postedDate":"April 6th, 2022","published":true,"recentEditorialEvents":[],"rejectedJournal":[],"revision":"","amendment":"","status":"published-in-journal","subjectAreas":[],"tags":[],"updatedAt":"2023-01-27T08:09:56+00:00","versionOfRecord":{"articleIdentity":"rs-1474794","link":"https://doi.org/10.1038/s41567-022-01882-8","journal":{"identity":"nature-physics","isVorOnly":false,"title":"Nature Physics"},"publishedOn":"2023-01-26 05:00:00","publishedOnDateReadable":"January 26th, 2023"},"versionCreatedAt":"2022-04-06 17:22:38","video":"","vorDoi":"10.1038/s41567-022-01882-8","vorDoiUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1038/s41567-022-01882-8","workflowStages":[]},"version":"v1","identity":"rs-1474794","journalConfig":"researchsquare"},"__N_SSP":true},"page":"/article/[identity]/[[...version]]","query":{"redirect":"/article/rs-1474794","identity":"rs-1474794","version":["v1"]},"buildId":"_2-kVJe1T_tPrBINL-cwx","isFallback":false,"isExperimentalCompile":false,"dynamicIds":[84888],"gssp":true,"scriptLoader":[]}

Text is read by the "Ask this paper" AI Q&A widget below. Extraction quality varies by source — PMC NXML preserves structure cleanly, OA-HTML may include some navigation residue, and OA-PDF can have broken hyphenation. The publisher copy (via DOI) is the canonical version.

My notes (saved in your browser only)

Ask this paper AI returns verbatim quotes from the full text · source: preprint-html

Answers must be backed by verbatim quotes from this paper's full text. Hallucinated quotes are dropped automatically; if no verbatim passage answers the question, we say so. How this works

Citation neighborhood (no data yet)

We don't have any in-corpus citations linked to this paper yet. The paper's references may be in our DB but unresolved to ``paper_id`` (resolution happens at ingest when the cited DOI matches a row we already have). Run the cross-source citation reconcile pass to retry.

Source provenance

europepmc
last seen: 2026-05-19T01:45:01.086888+00:00