When fast-moving particles from the sun strike the Earth’s magnetic field, they set off reactions that could disrupt communications satellites and power grids.
When fast-moving particles from the sun strike the Earth’s magnetic field, they set off reactions that could disrupt communications satellites and power grids. Now, scientists at the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory (PPPL) have learned new details of this process that could lead to better forecasting of this so-called space weather.
The findings indicate how these regular blasts of fast-moving particles from the sun interact with the magnetic fields surrounding Earth in a region known as the magnetosphere. During these solar outpourings, the sun’s and Earth’s magnetic field lines collide. The field lines break and then reattach, releasing huge amounts of energy in a process known as magnetic reconnection. That energy disperses through the magnetosphere and into Earth’s upper atmosphere.
Spacecraft and computing provide insights
The scientists developed a computer program, or algorithm, to automatically detect bubble-like structures called “plasmoids” in data gathered from the magnetosphere. The program analyzed information gathered by NASA’s Magnetospheric Multiscale (MMS) mission, a group of four spacecraft launched in 2015 to study reconnection in the magnetosphere.
Read more at Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory
Photo: Physicist Kendra Bergstedt in front of an artist's conception of the Magnetiospheric Multiscale Mission and the Earth's magnetosphere. Photo by Elle Starkman and NASA
