Trying to understand how gigantic explosions on the sun can create space weather effects involves tracking energy from the original event all the way to Earth. It's not unlike keeping tabs on a character in a play with many costume changes, because the energy changes form frequently along its journey: magnetic energy causes eruptions that lead to kinetic energy as particles hurtle away, or thermal energy as the particles heat up. Near Earth, the energy can change through all these various forms once again.
Most of the large and small features of substorms take place largely in the portion of Earth's magnetic environment called the magnetotail. Earth sits inside a large magnetic bubble called the magnetosphere. As Earth orbits around the sun, the solar wind from the sun streams past the bubble, stretching it outward into a teardrop. The magnetotail is the long point of the teardrop trailing out to more than 1 million miles on the night side of Earth. The moon orbits Earth much closer, some 240,000 miles away, crossing in and out of the magnetotail.", "items": [], "extra_data": {} }, { "id": 345271, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/11309/#media_group_345271", "widget": "Video player", "title": "", "caption": "", "description": "This short video features commentary by David Sibeck, project scientist for the THEMIS mission, discussing a visualization of reconnection fronts.
Simulation courtesy of J. Raeder/UNH.
Watch this video on the NASAexplorer YouTube channel.
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Now, scientists have mapped the details of this journey better than ever before. Auroras are produced when fast-moving particles funnel toward the poles and collide with gases in Earth’s atmosphere. But what shifts these particles into high gear is a shockwave of energy that’s caused by the crossing and realignment of magnetic field lines on the night side of the planet. This process, called magnetic reconnection, takes place in a distant region of the vast magnetic environment that surrounds Earth known as the magnetotail. Taking advantage of an unprecedented alignment of eight satellites, scientists tracked the flow of energy from the sun to the magnetotail and back to Earth for the first time. Watch the video to see this journey unfold. || ", "release_date": "2013-11-19T00:00:00-05:00", "update_date": "2023-05-03T13:51:26.904529-04:00", "main_image": { "id": 460712, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/vis/a010000/a011300/a011368/cover-1024.jpg", "filename": "cover-1024.jpg", "media_type": "Image", "alt_text": "How auroras are made.", "width": 1024, "height": 576, "pixels": 589824 } }, { "id": 4080, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/4080/", "page_type": "Visualization", "title": "Reconnection Fronts - When Satellites Align...", "description": "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. 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The visualization slows around the time of the event at July 3, 2012 09:45GMT.", "width": 1920, "height": 1080, "pixels": 2073600 } }, { "id": 4088, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/4088/", "page_type": "Visualization", "title": "Reconnection Fronts - What the Models Say...", "description": "Mathematical models of Earth's magnetosphere have become increasingly more complex and accurate. They have sufficient detail to illustrate many small-scale phenomena.In this simulation run of the Geospace General Circulation Model (GGCM) we see new details that have been observed by in situ satellites. As the solar wind is deflected around Earth's magnetosphere (the 'bubble' of plasma surrounding Earth held by Earth's magnetic field), plasma flows within the bubble can change. In the graphics below, physical variables such as magnetic field and electric currents are plotted. With these variables, we overlay the net flow of the plasma (arrows), subjected to selection criteria to separate flows of plasma away from Earth and towards Earth. Green arrows are low-speed flows (below about 150 kilometers/second), while red arrows correspond to high-speed plasmal flows (about 300 kilometers/second and higher). || ", "release_date": "2013-09-26T14:00:00-04:00", "update_date": "2023-05-03T13:51:49.905200-04:00", "main_image": { "id": 463972, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/vis/a000000/a004000/a004088/THM-DF-20120703-06.Bz.009750.png", "filename": "THM-DF-20120703-06.Bz.009750.png", "media_type": "Image", "alt_text": "Magnetic field in x-y plane (approximately Earth equatorial plane) but pointed in the z-direction. Purple has the field pointed towards the camera, orange has the field pointed away from the camera. The solar wind approaches Earth (blue dot) from the left. The magnetotail extends to the right.", "width": 3840, "height": 2160, "pixels": 8294400 } }, { "id": 3682, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/3682/", "page_type": "Visualization", "title": "ARTEMIS Mission", "description": "An extension to the THEMIS mission is to send two of the THEMIS satellites into lunar orbit to study the magnetospheric environment near the Moon. The new mission is named ARTEMIS (Acceleration, Reconnection Turbulence, and Electrodynamics of Moon's Interaction with the Sun).The outermost two THEMIS spacecraft (Probes B and C) are on route to the Moon, where they will become the ARTEMIS mission's Probes 1 and 2 (red and green, respectively) , tasked with studying not only the tenuous cavity carved out by the Moon in the supersonic solar wind, but also reconnection, particle energization and turbulence in both the solar wind and the Earth's distant magnetotail at lunar distance. ARTEMIS stands for Acceleration, Reconnection, Turbulence, and Electrodynamics of the Moon's Interaction with the Sun.Thanks to careful planning, sufficient fuel remained on both spacecraft at the successful completion of their primary mission to raise their apogees to lunar distance, where they could receive the multiple gravitational assists needed to fling the spacecraft first beyond the Moon and then assist them in entering in orbits that parallel that of the Moon at the L1 and L2 Lagrange points. Maneuvers in April 2011 enable the spacecraft to enter into prograde and retrograde lunar orbits (the 'braided' motion).The direction of the Sun is indicated by the yellow arrow. || ", "release_date": "2010-10-27T12:00:00-04:00", "update_date": "2023-05-03T13:53:59.467528-04:00", "main_image": { "id": 493969, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/vis/a000000/a003600/a003682/ARTEMISdeluxeC.HR_Full.HD720p.04480.jpg", "filename": "ARTEMISdeluxeC.HR_Full.HD720p.04480.jpg", "media_type": "Image", "alt_text": "... and out.", "width": 1280, "height": 720, "pixels": 921600 } } ], "sources": [], "products": [], "newer_versions": [], "older_versions": [], "alternate_versions": [] }