From our vantage point on the ground, the sun seems like a still ball of light, but in reality, it teems with activity. Eruptions called solar flares and coronal mass ejections explode in the sun's hot atmosphere, the corona, ...
Space Exploration
May 10, 2016
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Solar flares are intense bursts of light from the sun. They are created when complicated magnetic fields suddenly and explosively rearrange themselves, converting magnetic energy into light through a process called magnetic ...
Space Exploration
Apr 19, 2016
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Conditions in the vast universe can be quite extreme: Violent collisions scar the surfaces of planets. Nuclear reactions in bright stars generate tremendous amounts of energy. Gigantic explosions catapult matter far out into ...
General Physics
Apr 15, 2016
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Just under four months into the science phase of the mission, NASA's Magnetospheric Multiscale, or MMS, is delivering promising early results on a process called magnetic reconnection—a kind of magnetic explosion that's ...
Space Exploration
Dec 18, 2015
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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 ...
Space Exploration
Dec 1, 2015
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Magnetic reconnection, which occurs when magnetic lines of force break apart and reconnect with a violent burst of energy, gives rise to many beautiful and powerful phenomena in the natural world. These include solar flares, ...
Plasma Physics
Nov 10, 2015
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A NASA-funded sounding rocket is getting ready to launch to give insight into one of the biggest mysteries in solar physics—the fact the sun's atmosphere is some 1,000 times hotter than its surface. The mission, developed ...
Space Exploration
Aug 24, 2015
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On July 9, 2015 the four spacecraft of NASA's Magnetospheric Multiscale, or MMS, mission began flying in a pyramid shape for the first time. The four-sided pyramid shape—called a tetrahedron—means that scientists' observations ...
Space Exploration
Jul 29, 2015
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On March 12, National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) scientists launched four observational satellites into space, officially beginning the Magnetospheric Multiscale (MMS) Mission. The diminutive spacecraft, ...
Space Exploration
Jun 17, 2015
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Following a successful launch at 10:44 p.m. EDT Thursday, NASA's four Magnetospheric Multiscale (MMS) spacecraft are positioned in Earth's orbit to begin the first space mission dedicated to the study of a phenomenon called ...
Space Exploration
Mar 13, 2015
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