WEBVTT FILE 1 00:00:10.218 --> 00:00:10.635 All right. 2 00:00:10.635 --> 00:00:13.138 Space weather is similar to terrestrial weather. 3 00:00:13.138 --> 00:00:15.015 Think of space as not being empty. 4 00:00:15.015 --> 00:00:18.727 We have winds that consist of charged particles that flow from the sun. 5 00:00:19.060 --> 00:00:20.729 We have hurricanes. 6 00:00:20.729 --> 00:00:23.773 We call them space storms, or coronal mass ejections 7 00:00:23.773 --> 00:00:26.776 that come from the sun and move towards us. 8 00:00:27.318 --> 00:00:30.321 We have temperature that charged particles can be 9 00:00:30.321 --> 00:00:33.908 a very high energy and can be very hot, in other words. 10 00:00:34.117 --> 00:00:37.537 And the hotter they are, the bigger the effects that they have on, on 11 00:00:37.537 --> 00:00:40.665 on the environment and especially when they get into the Earth's system. 12 00:00:40.957 --> 00:00:43.626 So space weather is the study of exactly the same thing 13 00:00:43.626 --> 00:00:47.630 we do terrestrially to understand how these things change from the sun. 14 00:00:47.922 --> 00:00:49.507 And when they get to the Earth, 15 00:00:49.507 --> 00:00:52.510 the downstream effects that this has on our Earth's system, 16 00:00:52.510 --> 00:00:55.597 the magnetosphere and everything that's contained in it, the spacecraft, 17 00:00:55.597 --> 00:00:57.640 and ultimately all the way down to the ground. 18 00:01:03.646 --> 00:01:04.814 What TRACERS helps you to 19 00:01:04.814 --> 00:01:07.901 understand is what makes a storm big in the way it affects us 20 00:01:07.901 --> 00:01:08.818 here at Earth. 21 00:01:08.818 --> 00:01:12.280 The energy flow or the energy that's contained in the charged particles 22 00:01:12.280 --> 00:01:13.156 from the sun 23 00:01:13.156 --> 00:01:16.743 and carries with it, and a magnetic field when that interacts with the Earth. 24 00:01:16.743 --> 00:01:20.497 It's a complex interactions, and sometimes a lot of energy gets transferred. 25 00:01:20.497 --> 00:01:22.665 Sometimes little energy gets transferred. 26 00:01:22.665 --> 00:01:25.627 TRACERS sits at an altitude in the polar cusp, 27 00:01:25.835 --> 00:01:28.213 which has a direct entry into the solar wind. 28 00:01:28.213 --> 00:01:31.049 So it's like a mirror of what happens out far in space. 29 00:01:31.049 --> 00:01:34.844 So you can measure down below all the varying conditions that lead 30 00:01:34.844 --> 00:01:38.098 to something being a really big storm or a very small storm. 31 00:01:38.139 --> 00:01:39.849 And this is still something we do not know. 32 00:01:39.849 --> 00:01:42.852 And in terms of predictions, is something we have to know if we want to 33 00:01:42.852 --> 00:01:43.603 get better at it. 34 00:01:49.234 --> 00:01:51.986 You know, the solar wind we mentioned that before 35 00:01:51.986 --> 00:01:55.782 is carried from the sun and it has embedded magnetic fields. 36 00:01:55.782 --> 00:01:57.826 And these magnetic field have directions 37 00:01:57.826 --> 00:02:00.245 that can be either northwards or southwards. 38 00:02:00.245 --> 00:02:02.080 And the Earth's magnetic field is fixed. 39 00:02:02.080 --> 00:02:04.415 It's controlled by the Earth's core. 40 00:02:04.415 --> 00:02:06.417 And it has always a fixed direction. 41 00:02:06.417 --> 00:02:09.045 And when these fields are in the same direction, not much happens. 42 00:02:09.045 --> 00:02:12.549 You know, it's like it's like two spouts of water going in the same direction. 43 00:02:12.549 --> 00:02:14.217 There's not much action going on, 44 00:02:14.217 --> 00:02:16.719 but when they are in opposite directions and meet. 45 00:02:16.719 --> 00:02:20.974 And if you think about two water spouts being pointed each other where they meet, 46 00:02:21.516 --> 00:02:24.352 particles get redirected in all sorts of directions. 47 00:02:24.352 --> 00:02:27.355 And that's kind of what we talk about magnetic reconnection, 48 00:02:27.397 --> 00:02:32.277 where these field lines can reconnect and the particles that are tied to them 49 00:02:32.277 --> 00:02:32.861 can enter 50 00:02:32.861 --> 00:02:37.323 the Earth's system can go all the way down to the atmosphere where you have aurora 51 00:02:37.323 --> 00:02:39.826 that can cause large currents that give you all the other 52 00:02:39.826 --> 00:02:42.370 geomagnetic effects that we talked about before. 53 00:02:48.585 --> 00:02:49.210 Well, the 54 00:02:49.210 --> 00:02:52.422 overarching question in understanding how much energy 55 00:02:52.422 --> 00:02:56.384 is transferred into the Earth's system is to understand over 56 00:02:56.384 --> 00:02:59.470 what area does this happen and how does it happen in time? 57 00:02:59.470 --> 00:03:02.348 Does it happen a little bit here, a little bit over there? 58 00:03:02.348 --> 00:03:06.019 Does it happen all over the front side of the magnetosphere and TRACERS 59 00:03:06.019 --> 00:03:10.440 cutting through in the Earth’s cusp down low is ideally positioned to see that. 60 00:03:10.815 --> 00:03:12.358 And the two spacecrafts are needed. 61 00:03:12.358 --> 00:03:15.403 Well think about it in terms of two boats in an ocean. 62 00:03:15.403 --> 00:03:17.655 When the two boats go up together, 63 00:03:17.655 --> 00:03:19.991 you know, you know that the whole ocean is going up. 64 00:03:19.991 --> 00:03:21.743 If one goes up, then the other goes up. 65 00:03:21.743 --> 00:03:24.370 You know, you might be seeing a wave that goes past you, 66 00:03:24.370 --> 00:03:29.500 and that's sort of a change in space and a change in time that we can disentangle. 67 00:03:29.500 --> 00:03:33.296 And that gives you the evidence to understand how well reconnection work, 68 00:03:33.546 --> 00:03:36.507 how well is the energy being transferred into our system. 69 00:03:36.507 --> 00:03:40.470 And thus we need to understand these details in order to make better predictions. 70 00:03:47.435 --> 00:03:47.769 Right. 71 00:03:47.769 --> 00:03:49.896 I mean, you have to space weather here at Earth. 72 00:03:49.896 --> 00:03:51.105 At Earth, we are lucky. 73 00:03:51.105 --> 00:03:54.150 We've got the magnetosphere, which is like a shield that shields us 74 00:03:54.150 --> 00:03:57.612 from the sun and the harmful radiation in most parts. 75 00:03:57.820 --> 00:04:00.531 Not in the cusp, of course, that's why we're there.. 76 00:04:00.531 --> 00:04:02.533 But also at the moon, at Mars, where people are trying 77 00:04:02.533 --> 00:04:05.620 to go to understanding how the sun operates is important. 78 00:04:05.828 --> 00:04:08.164 Reconnection is the process that happens at the sun 79 00:04:08.164 --> 00:04:10.166 that actually leads to these large eruptions. 80 00:04:10.166 --> 00:04:12.001 But here at Earth, it's one of the few places 81 00:04:12.001 --> 00:04:14.337 we can actually study it at our own planet. 82 00:04:14.337 --> 00:04:17.340 We can actually get to it and measure it. 83 00:04:21.761 --> 00:04:22.345 Space weather 84 00:04:22.345 --> 00:04:26.015 affects everything around us, but of course, in particular 85 00:04:26.349 --> 00:04:31.229 the assets that we have out in space. Just like terrestrial weather protects - 86 00:04:31.229 --> 00:04:31.813 we need to know 87 00:04:31.813 --> 00:04:34.941 when storms are to protect ships on sea, to protect infrastructure, 88 00:04:35.233 --> 00:04:37.151 we need to protect our infrastructure in space 89 00:04:37.151 --> 00:04:37.986 in a similar way. 90 00:04:43.992 --> 00:04:45.451 There are several sites available. 91 00:04:45.451 --> 00:04:49.372 There's NASA dot gov slash TRACERS [nasa.gov/tracers] backup traces and NASA solar system [@NASASolarSystem] on various 92 00:04:49.372 --> 00:04:52.375 social media accounts. 93 00:04:57.380 --> 00:05:00.508 On satellites in particular, you have, effects 94 00:05:00.675 --> 00:05:04.095 of surface charging, which can give you discharges on the spacecraft. 95 00:05:04.387 --> 00:05:07.348 You've got the high energy particles getting right into the electronics, 96 00:05:07.348 --> 00:05:10.351 giving you upsets in the computer, and then you got the 97 00:05:10.685 --> 00:05:14.522 the overall dose of radiation, which eventually can kill a satellite 98 00:05:14.522 --> 00:05:17.525 and limit the lifetime of the satellite. 99 00:05:22.572 --> 00:05:25.491 Well, for me, it's, it's the culmination of having worked 100 00:05:25.491 --> 00:05:28.494 with these guys for a very long time and getting to know the team. 101 00:05:29.787 --> 00:05:30.246 It's. 102 00:05:30.246 --> 00:05:32.623 And a lot of them out to my colleagues. 103 00:05:32.623 --> 00:05:35.126 But from a science point of view, it's it's very exciting to see 104 00:05:35.126 --> 00:05:38.796 the next step going forward and being able to do these kinds of measurements 105 00:05:39.130 --> 00:05:41.799 at the, at the cusps in the low Earth orbit. 106 00:05:41.799 --> 00:05:45.511 We've had glimpses of the dynamics there from rocket flights in the past. 107 00:05:45.803 --> 00:05:49.474 But to really understand, you know, you can't send up 3000 rockets. 108 00:05:49.474 --> 00:05:52.268 TRACERS can go up and do these measurements repeatedly. 109 00:05:52.268 --> 00:05:53.019 We're going to collect 110 00:05:53.019 --> 00:05:57.023 about 3000 crossings of the cusp region throughout the TRACERS mission. 111 00:05:57.190 --> 00:06:00.610 That gives us enough events and enough statistics to really untangle 112 00:06:00.777 --> 00:06:04.447 when and how the solar wind couples in, and when 113 00:06:04.447 --> 00:06:08.326 and how reconnection is really working well and when it does not work well. 114 00:06:08.493 --> 00:06:11.371 And again, those are the basic physics of the reconnections 115 00:06:11.371 --> 00:06:14.999 that will also help us understand how it works on the sun and by extension, 116 00:06:15.416 --> 00:06:18.252 in the broader heliosphere and also the broader universe. 117 00:06:25.843 --> 00:06:27.970 We have a range of other missions that are going out 118 00:06:27.970 --> 00:06:31.432 there, that are also been around for a long, long time. 119 00:06:31.766 --> 00:06:34.435 EZIE and PUNCH have just launched, 120 00:06:34.435 --> 00:06:38.189 they look at the sun through images, you know, remotely, but 121 00:06:38.189 --> 00:06:42.485 you cannot do in images measuring things that actually happen locally at the sun. 122 00:06:42.777 --> 00:06:45.988 And and TRACERS again is the one mission that allows us 123 00:06:45.988 --> 00:06:49.283 to study these processes in situ where we can get at them. 124 00:06:49.450 --> 00:06:53.413 So it complements all the other science and putting all these bits and pieces 125 00:06:53.413 --> 00:06:55.289 together, observing the sun. 126 00:06:55.289 --> 00:06:59.293 But the images doing some of the measurements on the, on the reconnection, 127 00:07:00.336 --> 00:07:03.423 you know, it kind of fills out the full picture of how our sun 128 00:07:03.423 --> 00:07:07.176 interacts with the planetary system and us here on Earth in particular. 129 00:07:14.559 --> 00:07:14.934 Right. 130 00:07:14.934 --> 00:07:18.104 In the past, we've gotten snapshots of what happens at reconnection 131 00:07:18.104 --> 00:07:21.941 at the front side of the Earth by a rocket flying through the cusp region 132 00:07:22.275 --> 00:07:24.569 TRACERS is the first mission that not only flies 133 00:07:24.569 --> 00:07:27.822 through this region repeatedly, but does so with two spacecraft. 134 00:07:27.822 --> 00:07:31.117 So we can really understand the details of, time and, 135 00:07:31.576 --> 00:07:34.996 and space where these, reconnection happens up front. 136 00:07:35.288 --> 00:07:36.247 And that is critical 137 00:07:36.247 --> 00:07:39.667 for us to understand the process to the point of predictability. 138 00:07:39.834 --> 00:07:43.880 And going forward, the data from the TRACERS cusp crossing, we expect 139 00:07:43.880 --> 00:07:48.551 over 3000 of them will help us to build better predictive models for the Earth.