Earth  Sun  ID: 2676

Tour of the Magnetosphere

Visualizations by Tom Bridgman Released on March 18, 2003
Tour of the Earth's magnetosphere generated for 'Live from the Aurora'. This viz pulls out from the Earth and fades in components of the magnetosphere.
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Here we start with a view of the Earth's north magnetic pole. We fade in the field lines as we pull outward and reveal the structure of the magnetosphere structure driven from these field lines.
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Close-up view of the Earth showing a few magnetic field lines. One field line passes through Cape Isachsen near the magnetic North pole in Canada and stretches out into the magnetotail.
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About half-way through the pull-back from the Earth, we can distinguish some of the dipole character of the magnetic field.
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Now we see a big picture view, showing many field lines in the magnetotail.
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Display the >8.6 particles-cm^3 isosurface
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Now the >17 particles-cm^3 (red) and >12 particles-cm^3 (yellow) isosurfaces are visible.
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Finally show the low-density (<1.0 particle-cm^3) region designated by blue.
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A brief flight through the magnetotail
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A brief flight through the magnetotail
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A brief flight through the magnetotail
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Video slate image reads "Tour of the Magnetosphere Tour of the Earth's magnetosphere generated for 'Live from the Aurora'. This viz pulls out from the Earth and fades in components of the magnetosphere".

Visualization Credits

Tom Bridgman (Global Science and Technology, Inc.): Lead Animator
Dan Spicer (NASA/GSFC): Scientist
Please give credit for this item to:
NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center Scientific Visualization Studio. Additional assistance from Art Poland (NASA/GSFC) and Nicola Fox (Johns Hopkins APL)

Short URL to share this page:
https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/2676

Data Used:
3D Unstructured-mesh Magnetosphere Simulation
Model
Model generated by Dan Spicer, NASA
view all stories where this data set is used
Note: While we identify the data sets used in these visualizations, we do not store any further details nor the data sets themselves on our site.

This item is part of this series:
Live from the Aurora

Keywords:
SVS >> Earth
SVS >> Geomagnetic Field
SVS >> Magnetosphere
DLESE >> Space science
NASA Science >> Earth
NASA Science >> Sun