Birkeland current map?

[popster1]

Just ran across an interesting image at http://www.geek.com/news/nasas-nicer-sh ... e-1789556/. Has NASA been mapping Birkeland currents?

[Solar]

Here is the official NASA Press Release:

NICER’s Night Moves Trace the X-ray Sky

Has anyone seen hide or tail of some docs??

The prominent arcs form because NICER often follows the same paths between targets. The arcs converge on bright spots representing NICER’s most popular destinations -- the locations of important X-ray sources the mission regularly monitors. - Nasa

That makes it sound as if the arcs are just "trails"... like the smeared trail you would see if you left the lens of a camera open while looking at a bright source and moved the camera. The resulting picture would show "trails" of light simply because the camera was moved.

[Zyxzevn]

From the webpage:
"The formation of these arcs is caused by NICER following the same paths between targets"

So this means that the thin lines are NOT real.
They are caused by the telescope's path.

The brightness indicates how the X-rays are distributed.
And it seems that sometimes this brightness varies.

[Solar]

Agreed.