TRACERS Science Animations

In this animation, the Sun’s magnetic field collides with Earth’s, resulting in dayside, or frontside, magnetic reconnection. The solar wind — waves of dangerous charged particles from the Sun traveling at speeds over 1 million miles per hour shown in orange — push the Sun’s magnetic field (represented by a vertical orange line) toward a collision course with Earth’s magnetic field. When the two meet, there's a tremendous energy release and the magnetic field lines snap and reconnect, creating new field lines.

In this animation, charged particles are funneled down the newly-created field lines into Earth’s northern polar cusp — a unique region where particles from the Sun are funneled straight down toward Earth — after a magnetic reconnection event. It’s here in the cusp that the impacts of this explosive process reverberate and where TRACERS will take its measurements to get a global picture of magnetic reconnection.

In this animation, the TRACERS spacecraft fly by the camera and enter the polar cusp, where the two spacecraft will make more than 3,000 measurements of dayside magnetic reconnection in the first year of the mission. Orange particles and shading represent an artistic rendering of what flying through the polar cusp would look like if the region was visible to the naked eye.

This animation shows an over-the-shoulder view of the TRACERS spacecraft as they enter the polar cusp — a unique region where particles from the Sun are funneled straight down toward Earth — and where the two spacecraft will make more than 3,000 measurements of dayside magnetic reconnection in the first year of the mission. Orange particles and shading represent an artistic rendering of what flying through the polar cusp would look like if the region was visible to the naked eye.

A turntable animation of the TRACERS spacecraft.