northern lights tagged posts

Northern lights as seen over Norway. Credit: Jan R. Olsen

Jonathan Ng, a Princeton University graduate student at the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory (PPPL), has for the first time applied a fluid simulation to the space plasma process behind solar flares, northern lights and space storms. The model could lead to improved forecasts of space weather that can shut down cell phone service and damage power grid, and better understanding of the hot, charged plasma gas that fuels fusion reactions.

The new simulation captures the physics of magnetic reconnection, the breaking apart and snapping together of the magnetic field lines in plasma that occurs throughout the universe...

The four identical spacecraft of NASA’s Magnetospheric Multiscale, or MMS, mission (one of which is illustrated here) fly through the boundaries of Earth’s magnetic field to study an explosive process of magnetic reconnection. Thought to be the driver behind everything from solar flares to aurora, magnetic reconnection creates a sudden reconfiguration of magnetic fields, releasing huge amounts of energy in the process. Credit: NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center

Just under four months into the science phase of the mission, NASA’s Magnetospheric Multiscale, or MMS, is delivering promising early results on magnetic reconnection—a magnetic explosion that’s related to everything from the northern lights to solar flares...