density and magnetic fluctuations caused by turbulence tagged posts

Illustration showing spacecraft of ESA’s Cluster mission (top) and NASA’s THEMIS mission (bottom) flying through Earth’s magnetosheath, the highly turbulent boundary region between the solar wind and the magnetosphere around our planet. Credit: European Space Agency

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 solar wind and the magnetic bubble that protects our planet. Based on data collected by ESA’s Cluster and NASA’s THEMIS missions over several years, the study revealed that turbulence is the key, making this process a hundred times more efficient than in the solar wind.

It is the interaction between Earth’s magnetic field and the solar wind that creates the intricate s...