Artist depiction of the MMS spacecraft that provided the first view of magnetic reconnection.
Credit: NASA/GSFC
Researchers at the University of New Hampshire have captured a difficult-to-view singular event involving “magnetic reconnection” – the process by which sparse particles and energy around Earth collide producing a quick but mighty explosion – in the Earth’s magnetotail, the magnetic environment that trails behind the planet.
Magnetic reconnection has remained a bit of a mystery to scientists. They know it exists and have documented the effects that the energy explosions can have – sparking auroras and possibly wreaking havoc on power grids in the case of extremely large events – but they haven’t completely understood the details...
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