Visualizations by
Tom Bridgman
Released on September 26, 2013
In July of 2012, a fleet of spacecraft studying Earth's magnetosphere were in an ideal alignment to detect a particle flow predicted in magnetospheric models. The grey mesh shell structure represents the approximate location of the magnetopause.
In this visualization, THEMIS, ARTEMIS (in orbit around the Moon), and Geotail, as well as the particle detectors on the GOES-13 and GOES-15 satellites achieved a good alignment around 09:45 on July 3, 2012 to detect one of the particle flows predicted by magnetospheric models.