Yep, cool stuff!

And of course, similar "magnetic flux ropes" extend all the way back to the sun. Talk about your giant electric currents. Those supposedly carry on the order of 650,000 Amps? Yikes!

But then where do those currents hooked back to the sun come from? Inside the sun? Solar dynamo? Some analogous bigger external circuit? The mind boggles a bit.

Are the auroras on other planets like Jupiter and Saturn due to a similar process? I wonder if we'll find out they have "magnetic flux ropes" pointing back to the sun as well? It seems they already think Saturn's auroras are due to "solar wind pressure," IE inflowing charged particles.

"The observations, made by Hubble and the Cassini spacecraft, while enroute to the planet, suggest that Saturn's auroral storms are driven mainly by the pressure of the solar wind -- a stream of charged particles from the Sun -- rather than by the Sun's magnetic field. The aurora's strong brightening on Jan. 28, 2004 corresponds with the recent arrival of a large disturbance in the solar wind. The image shows that when Saturn's auroras become brighter (and thus more powerful), the ring of light encircling the pole shrinks in diameter."(NASA)

But why should more powerful auroras *shrink* in diameter? I can only think of one reason. But perhaps someone else can offer a more plausible one?