New Technologies Enable Study of Magnetic Reconnections in Space
Technology Infused: In March 2015, NASA launched an exciting new mission to investigate how the sun’s and Earth’s magnetic fields connect and disconnect, explosively transferring energy from one field to the other. This process—called magnetic reconnection—influences celestial bodies throughout the solar system, including our home planet. The Magnetospheric Multiscale (MMS) mission is one of NASA’s most complex missions, involving the integration of over 100 instruments into four spacecraft flying in formation. Magnetic reconnection occurs in the thin, fast moving, and largely unpredictable electron diffusion regions (EDR) of Earth’s magnetosphere. NASA’s Magnetospheric Multiscale mission (shown here in an artist concept) flies through the borders of the magnetic fields around Earth to better understand how they connect and disconnect with similar magnetic fields coming from the sun. Such magnetic reconnection can explosively release energy and particles into near-Earth space. To measure the processes occurring in the EDR, the four MMS spacecraft must capture data at a rate 100...