This four minute video outlines the MMS Mission and the phenomenon of magnetic reconnection.
NASA | MMS Mission Overview
Senior Project Scientist Tom Moore outlines the three instrument suites onboard the four MMS spacecraft.
On March 12, 2015, NASA plans to launch the Magnetospheric Multiscale, or MMS, mission. MMS consists of four identical spacecraft that will orbit around Earth through the dynamic magnetic system surrounding our planet to study a little-understood phenomenon called magnetic reconnection.
Watch NASA’s new movie to learn more about MMS and the phenomenon of magnetic reconnection, which occurs near Earth, on the sun, in other stars and in the vicinity of black holes and neutron stars.
The Magnetiospheric Multiscale, or MMS, mission will provide unprecedented detail on a phenomenon called magnetic reconnection, which happens throughout the universe and can accelerate particles up to nearly the speed of light.
The Magnetospheric Multiscale, or MMS, mission studies the mystery of how magnetic fields around Earth connect and disconnect, explosively releasing energy via a process known a magnetic reconnection. MMS consists of four identical spacecraft that work together to provide the first three-dimensional view of this fundamental process, which occurs throughout the universe.
The mission observes reconnection directly in Earth’s protective magnetic space environment, the magnetosphere. By studying reconnection in this local, natural laboratory, MMS helps us understand reconnection elsewhere as well, such as in the atmosphere of the sun and other stars, in the vicinity of black holes and neutron stars, and at the boundary between our solar system’s heliosphere and interstellar space.
Image: NASA Goddard Space Flight Center
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