plasma tagged posts

In this simulation, a reconnection even pushes a blob of plasma toward Earth. The jet blown in the opposite direction wobbles due to the unstable conditions. Credit: NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center/Yi-Hsin Liu/Joy Ng, producer

Every day, invisible magnetic explosions are happening around Earth, on the surface of the sun and across the universe. These explosions, known as magnetic reconnection, occur when magnetic field lines cross, releasing stored magnetic energy. Such explosions are a key way that clouds of charged particles – plasmas – are accelerated throughout the universe. In Earth’s magnetosphere – the giant magnetic bubble surrounding our planet — these magnetic reconnections can fling charged particles toward Earth, triggering auroras.

Magnetic reconnection, in addition to push...

The MMS satellites encounter a shock wave that forms when a fast wind of charged particles from the Sun slams into Earth’s magnetic field. Credit: APS/Carin Cain

In a new study researchers at the Swedish Institute of Space Physics have used measurements from NASA’s MMS (Magnetospheric MultiScale) satellites to reveal that there are ripples, or surface waves, moving along the surface of shocks in space. Such ripples in shocks can affect how plasma is heated and are potential sites of particle acceleration.

Most visible matter in the Universe consists of ionized gas known as plasma. Shock waves in plasmas form around planets, stars and supernovas. Shocks in supernova explosions are thought to be the main source of cosmic rays – very high energy charged particles from space...

A false-color composite image, constructed from data obtained by NASA’s Cassini spacecraft showing the glow the aurora about 1,000 km above the cloud tops of Saturn’s south pole (credit NASA/JPL/University of Arizona/ University of Leicester)

The evidence that Saturn’s upper atmosphere may, when buffeted by the solar wind, emit the same total amount of mass per second into its magnetosphere as its moon, Enceladus, has been found by UCL scientists working on the Cassini mission. Magnetospheres are regions of space that are heavily influenced by the magnetic field of a nearby planet and can contain charged particles in the form of plasma from both external and internal sources.

In the case of Saturn, its moon Enceladus ejects water from its icy plumes which is ionised into H2O+, O+, OH+ ...

It may offer an inexpensive new way to generate a freely movable microplasma, as well as yield insights into fundamental physics questions. It surprisingly also creates a mini light show, with the droplet sparking as it floats above a faint blue glowing gap. It is similar to Leidenfrost levitation — in which droplets dance on a hot vapor cushion. But by creating the vapor with a strong jolt of electricity instead of heat, the researchers found they could ionize the gas into a plasma that glowed a soft blue light.

“This method is probably an easy and original way to make a plasma,” said Cedric Poulain, a physicist at the French Alternative Energies and Atomic Energy Commission...