MMS Spacecraft Animation
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- Visualizations by:
- Walt Feimer
- View full credits
The Magnetospheric Multiscale (MMS) mission is a Solar Terrestrial Probes mission comprising four identically instrumented spacecraft that will use Earth’s magnetosphere as a laboratory to study the microphysics of three fundamental plasma processes: magnetic reconnection, energetic particle acceleration, and turbulence. These processes occur in all astrophysical plasma systems but can be studied in situ only in our solar system and most efficiently only in Earth’s magnetosphere, where they control the dynamics of the geospace environment and play an important role in the processes known as “space weather.”
Learn more about MMS at www.nasa.gov/mms
Credits
Please give credit for this item to:
NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center Conceptual Image Lab
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Animator
- Walt Feimer (KBR Wyle Services, LLC) [Lead]
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Producer
- Genna Duberstein (ADNET)
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Project support
- Aaron E. Lepsch (ADNET Systems, Inc.)
Missions
This visualization is related to the following missions:Related pages
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ID: 11700 Produced Video
Exploring Earth's Magnetism
Read moreIn March 2015, NASA will launch four spacecraft to study how magnetic fields around Earth connect and disconnect—a process known as magnetic reconnection. Magnetic reconnections take place on the day and night side of the planet and are caused by the interaction of Earth’s magnetic field with charged particles released from the sun called the solar wind. The four spacecraft, each identically engineered, make up the Magnetospheric Multiscale, or MMS, mission. Flying in a pyramid-shaped configuration, the spacecraft will orbit Earth and pass through areas known to be reconnection sites. Each reconnection event unleashes a massive burst of energy that can accelerate particles within Earth’s protective magnetic environment, known as the magnetosphere, to nearly the speed of light. Sensors onboard the spacecraft will measure the energy and movement of charged particles during an event, providing scientists with the first three-dimensional look at this phenomenon. Watch the video to learn more. ||
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ID: 11251 Produced Video
MMS Science Overview: The Mysteries of MMS
Read moreScientists Michael Hesse and John Dorelli explain the science objectives of the MMS mission. || For More Information || See [http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/mms/](http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/mms/) ||
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ID: 11526 Produced Video
MMS Mission Trailer
Read moreIn March 2015, NASA will launch four identical spacecraft to study how magnetic fields around Earth connect and disconnect, explosively releasing energy – a process known as magnetic reconnection. The Magnetospheric Multiscale, or MMS, mission will provide the first three-dimensional views of this fundamental process that can accelerate particles to nearly the speed of light. MMS uses Earth’s protective magnetic space environment, the magnetosphere, as a natural laboratory to directly measure reconnection. Reconnection is a common processes in our universe; occurring in space near Earth, in the atmosphere of the sun and other stars, in the vicinity of black holes and neutron stars, and at virtually any boundary between space plasmas, including the boundary between our solar system's heliosphere and interstellar space. ||
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ID: 11485 Produced Video
MMS Narrated Orbit
Read moreScientist John Dorelli explains the MMS mission's orbit and why the four spacecraft fly in a tetrahedron formation. On its journey, MMS will observe a little-understood, but universal phenomenon called magnetic reconnection, responsible for dramatic re-shaping of the magnetic environment near Earth, often sending intense amounts of energy and fast-moving particles off in a new direction. Not only is this a fundamental physical process that occurs throughout the universe, it is also one of the drivers of space weather events at Earth. To truly understanding the process, requires four identical spacecraft to track how such reconnection events move across and through any given space in 3D. ||
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ID: 11524 Produced Video
3 Days in 1 Minute: Stacking the MMS Spacecraft
Read moreThe Magnetospheric Multiscale, or MMS, mission stacked all four of its spacecraft in preparation for vibration testing. This time lapse shows one image every thirty seconds over three days of work. First, the spacecraft are assembled into mini-stacks, or placed on top of each other in sets of two. To create a full stack, engineers lift one mini-stack on top of another.Vibration testing simulates the conditions that the MMS spacecraft will experience during launch.MMS will study how the sun and the Earth's magnetic fields connect and disconnect, an explosive process that can accelerate particles through space to nearly the speed of light. This process is called magnetic reconnection and can occur throughout all space. ||
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ID: 12901 Produced Video
NASA Spacecraft Finds New Magnetic Process in Turbulent Space
Read moreThough close to home, the space immediately around Earth is full of hidden secrets and invisible processes. In a new discovery reported in the journal Nature, scientists working with NASA’s Magnetospheric Multiscale spacecraft — MMS — have uncovered a new type of magnetic event in our near-Earth environment by using an innovative technique to squeeze extra information out of the data.Magnetic reconnection is one of the most important processes in the space — filled with charged particles known as plasma — around Earth. This fundamental process dissipates magnetic energy and propels charged particles, both of which contribute to a dynamic space weather system that scientists want to better understand, and even someday predict, as we do terrestrial weather. Reconnection occurs when crossed magnetic field lines snap, explosively flinging away nearby particles at high speeds. The new discovery found reconnection where it has never been seen before — in turbulent plasma. ||
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ID: 12239 Produced Video
MMS First Results
Read moreThis short video outlines the MMS mission and its first results. Since it launched, MMS has made more than 4,000 trips through the magnetic boundaries around Earth, each time gathering information about the way the magnetic fields and particles move. A surprising result was that at the moment of interconnection between the sun’s magnetic field lines and those of Earth the crescents turned abruptly so that the electrons flowed along the field lines. By watching these electron tracers, MMS made the first observation of the predicted breaking and interconnection of magnetic fields in space. Credit: NASA/GSFCWatch this video on the NASA Goddard YouTube channel. ||
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