In an area stretching from Africa to South America, Earth’s magnetic field is gradually weakening. This strange behavior has geophysicists puzzled and is causing technical…
Magnetic North and the Elongating Blob For some years now, scientists have been puzzling over why the north magnetic pole has been making a dash…
The existence of a magnetic field beyond 3.5 billion years ago is still up for debate. Microscopic minerals excavated from an ancient outcrop of Jack…
The existence of a magnetic field beyond 3.5 billion years ago is still up for debate. Microscopic minerals excavated from an ancient outcrop of Jack…
Each second, 1.5 million tons of solar material shoot off of the Sun and out into space, traveling at hundreds of miles per second. Known…
The Earth’s magnetosphere contains plasma, an ionized gas composed of positive ions and negative electrons. The motion of these charged plasma particles is controlled by…
Though close to home, the space immediately around Earth is full of hidden secrets and invisible processes. In a new discovery reported in the journal…
Earth’s magnetic field provides an invisible but crucial barrier that protects Earth from the solar wind–a stream of charged particles launched from the sun’s outer…
The shower of electrons bouncing across Earth’s magnetosphere – commonly known as the Northern Lights – has been directly observed for the first time by…
For the first time, scientists have estimated how much energy is transferred from large to small scales within the magnetosheath, the boundary region between the…
This visualization shows the motion of one electron in the magnetic reconnection region. As the spacecraft approaches the reconnection region, it detects first high-energy particles,…
Interplanetary space is hardly tranquil. High-energy charged particles from the Sun, as well as from beyond our solar system, constantly whizz by. These can damage…
Planetary missions including Galileo, Cassini and Juno, and a number of spacecraft that orbit Earth, provide observations to create a comprehensive understanding of how planets…
NASA scientists, with the help of the Van Allen Probes mission, have recorded the eerie sounds made by different plasma waves in the particle symphony…
NASA’s Magnetospheric Multiscale Mission reveals a bizarre new type of motion exhibited by the high-energy electrons can damage satellites in orbit and trigger auroras. With…
Using data from Venus Express, researchers show how the impact of a slow Interplanetary Coronal Mass Ejection (ICME) can have profound effects on planets without…
The MMS mission is set to explore the magnetic reconnection at the nose of the magnetosphere, providing the first ever three-dimensional view of this process…
After 20 years, NASA’s Wind spacecraft is still going strong and helping scientists understand the forces that buffet near-Earth space. The end of 2014 marks…