Earth Surrounded by Giant Fizzy Bubbles

Science! Discover strange things you never expected (but somehow always suspected):

The space above you is fizzing with activity as bubbles of superhot gas constantly grow and pop around Earth, scientists announced today.

Astronomers found the activity up where Earth's magnetic field meets a constant stream of particles flowing out from the Sun.

While space is commonly called a vacuum, in fact there is gas everywhere, albeit not as dense as the air you breathe.

The newfound bubbles are technically called density holes. In them, gas density is 10 times lower. The gas in the bubbles is 18,000,000 Fahrenheit (10,000,000 Celsius) instead of the 180,000 degrees Fahrenheit of the surrounding hot gas, which is known as plasma.

The bubbles were found in data collected by the European Space Agency's Cluster mission, a flotilla of four spacecraft. ... The bubbles expand to about 620 miles (1,000 kilometers) and probably last about 10 seconds before bursting and being replaced by the cooler, denser solar wind, Parks and his colleagues say.