Latest Magnetosphere Stories
redOrbit Staff & Wire Reports - Your Universe Online Analysis of data collected by NASA’s Wind spacecraft as it traveled through the front of the Earth’s magnetosphere from 1998 through 2002 has revealed a special type of magnetic pulsations, scientists from the US space agency revealed on Tuesday. The magnetosphere, a giant area of space created by the Earth’s magnetic fields as it travels around the sun, produces a standing bow wave or bow shock as is travels through space....
ESA These colorful displays are produced when electrically charged particles traveling from the Sun in the solar wind are channeled along Earth’s magnetic field lines and strike atoms high in the atmosphere. Collisions with oxygen atoms typically generate green aurora, as seen here. The link between auroras and solar activity has been apparent for centuries, but only with the aid of satellites can scientists begin to decipher the physical mechanisms causing this spectacular...
WATCH VIDEO: [NASA | MAVEN Magnetometer] Lee Rannals for redOrbit.com – Your Universe Online NASA's MAVEN spacecraft is scheduled for launch later this year, and with it will launch an instrument designed to study Mars' magnetic field. The Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution (MAVEN) mission will be carrying a sensitive magnetic-field instrument that will help investigate what remains of Mars' magnetic "shield." This Maven magnetometer will be playing a key role in studying the...
NASA On Earth, scientists can observe weather patterns, and more importantly can predict them, through the use of tens of thousands of weather observatories scattered around the globe. Up in the space surrounding Earth -- a space that seethes with its own space weather made of speeding charged particles and constantly changing magnetic fields that can impact satellites – there are only a handful of spacecraft to watch for solar and magnetic storms. The number of observatories has been...
John P. Millis, Ph.D. for redOrbit.com – Your Universe Online Every year, eager sky watchers travel to the northern reaches of the Earth to catch a glimpse of the northern lights. This spectacle of color in the atmosphere – the Aurora Borealis and its companion to the south, the Aurora Australis – arises as the solar wind interacts with our atmosphere. When charged particles from our Sun hit our atmosphere, oxygen and nitrogen atoms become excited. As the atoms relax, they emit...
Brett Smith for redOrbit.com - Your Universe Online Data collected from the European Space Agency’s (ESA) Cluster Mission showed for the first time how turbulence within solar wind can create a warming effect as the charged particles travel away from the sun. The solar wind is formed by electrically charged plasma being ejected from the sun’s super hot atmosphere. According to a new report in the new issue of Physical Review Letters based on Cluster data, very small “current...
Lee Rannals for redOrbit.com – Your Universe Online An astronomer wrote in the journal Physical Review Letters about a new mechanism for the magnetization of the early universe. Before stars formed, luminous matter consisted only of fully ionized gas of protons, electrons, helium nuclei and lithium nuclei which were produced during the Big Bang. “All higher metals, for example, magnetic iron could, according to today’s conception, only be formed in the inside of stars," Dr....
Watch the video "Simulated Vision of Solar Wind Turbulence" April Flowers for redOrbit.com - Your Universe Online Scientists have zoomed in on solar wind to reveal the finest detail yet using the European Space Agency's (ESA) Cluster quartet of satellites as a space plasma microscope. They found tiny turbulent swirls that could play a big role in heating the winds. The fact that these winds stay hotter than they current models predict has been a long-standing puzzle in solar physics...
ESA Set against a star-studded backdrop and a splash of the Milky Way, the green glow of an auroral curtain pervades the permanently dark winter skies of the South Pole. The only sign of life here is the Concordia research station that ESA uses to prepare for future long-duration missions beyond Earth. The site also caters to scientific research from geology and glaciology to climate change, astronomy and planetary magnetic fields. Even though the Sun barely peeks above the horizon...
ESA’s quartet of satellites studying Earth’s magnetosphere, Cluster, has discovered that our protective magnetic bubble lets the solar wind in under a wider range of conditions than previously believed. Earth’s magnetic field is our planet’s first line of defense against the bombardment of the solar wind. This stream of plasma is launched by the Sun and travels across the Solar System, carrying its own magnetic field with it. Depending on how the solar wind’s interplanetary...
Latest Magnetosphere Reference Libraries
Planetary and Space Science is a peer-reviewed scientific journal established in 1959 and published by Elsevier 15 times per year. As of May 2012, the editor-in-chief is Rita Schulz (The Netherlands). The journal publishes original research articles and short communications. The main focus is on solar system processes which encompass multiple areas of the natural sciences. Research that involves planetary and space sciences involves many disciplines. Celestial mechanics is part of these...
Hannes Olof Gösta Alfvén (May 30, 1908 - April 2, 1995) was a Swedish plasma physicist born in Norrköping, Sweden. Alfvén received his PhD from the University of Uppsala in 1934. His thesis was titled "Investigations of the Ultra-short Electromagnetic Waves." He was originally trained as an electrical power engineer and later moved on to research and teaching in the fields of plasma physics. Alfvén made many contributions to plasma physics, including theories describing the...
Ring Current -- A ring current is an electric current carried by charged particles trapped in a planet's magnetosphere. It is caused by the longitudinal drift of energetic (10-200 keV) particles. Earth's Ring Current Earth's ring current is responsible for geomagnetic storms. The ring current system consists of a band, at a distance of 3-5 RE(1), which lies in the equatorial plane and circulates clockwise around the Earth (when viewed from the north). The particles of this region...
Heliopause -- The heliopause is the boundary where our Sun's solar wind is stopped by the interstellar medium. The solar wind blows a "bubble" in the interstellar medium (the rareified hydrogen and helium gas that permeates the galaxy). The point where the solar wind's strength is no longer great enough to push back the interstellar medium is known as the heliopause, and is often considered to be the outer "border" of the solar system. The distance to the heliopause is not precisely...
Aurora -- The Polar Aurora are natural displays of light in the sky that can be seen with the unaided eye only at night. An auroral display in the Northern Hemisphere is called the aurora borealis, or the northern lights; in the Southern Hemisphere it is called the aurora australis. Auroras are the most visible effect of the sun's activity on the earth's atmosphere. The beautiful and often eerie curtains of light in the night time sky have been observed by people for millennia. An aurora...
![Cassini at Saturn\](/media/gallery/cassinihuygens-mission/thumbs/thumbs_pia16739.jpg "Cassini at Saturn\")
