Related topics: magnetic field · nasa · space weather · solar wind · spacecraft

Studying magnetic space explosions with NASA missions

Every day, invisible magnetic explosions are happening around Earth, on the surface of the sun and across the universe. These explosions, known as magnetic reconnection, occur when magnetic field lines cross, releasing stored ...

Image: NASA's MMS achieves closest-ever flying formation

On Sept. 15, 2016, NASA's Magnetospheric Multiscale, or MMS, mission achieved a new record: Its four spacecraft are flying only four-and-a-half miles apart, the closest separation ever of any multi-spacecraft formation. The ...

The magnetosphere has a large intake of solar wind energy

Solar wind forms the energy source for aurora explosions. How does the Earth's magnetosphere take in the energy of the solar wind? An international team led by Hiroshi Hasegawa and Naritoshi Kitamura (ISAS/JAXA) analyzed ...

The curious case of Earth's leaking atmosphere

Earth's atmosphere is leaking. Every day, around 90 tonnes of material escapes from our planet's upper atmosphere and streams out into space. Although missions such as ESA's Cluster fleet have long been investigating this ...

Saturn and Enceladus produce the same amount of plasma

The first evidence that Saturn's upper atmosphere may, when buffeted by the solar wind, emit the same total amount of mass per second into its magnetosphere as its moon, Enceladus, has been found by UCL scientists working ...

NASA's MMS Spotted from Tokyo

Looking like artificial shooting stars, the four Magnetospheric Multiscale, or MMS, spacecraft appear as greenish streaks in this series of photos taken with a DSLR camera from Japan on Nov. 30, 2015, at 2:11 p.m. EST (Dec. ...

Cassini mission provides insight into Saturn

Scientists have found the first direct evidence for explosive releases of energy in Saturn's magnetic bubble using data from the Cassini spacecraft, a joint mission between NASA, the European Space Agency, and the Italian ...

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