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A rendering of the magnetic field lines of the magnetosphere of the Earth.. In astronomy and planetary science, a magnetosphere is a region of space surrounding an astronomical object in which charged particles are affected by that object's magnetic field.
Schematic of the Birkeland or Field-Aligned Currents and the ionospheric current systems they connect to, Pedersen and Hall currents. [1]A Birkeland current (also known as field-aligned current, FAC) is a set of electrical currents that flow along geomagnetic field lines connecting the Earth's magnetosphere to the Earth's high latitude ionosphere.
A substorm, sometimes referred to as a magnetospheric substorm or an auroral substorm, is a brief disturbance in the Earth's magnetosphere that causes energy to be released from the "tail" of the magnetosphere and injected into the high latitude ionosphere.
A geomagnetic storm, also known as a magnetic storm, is a temporary disturbance of the Earth's magnetosphere caused by a solar wind shock wave. The disturbance that drives the magnetic storm may be a solar coronal mass ejection (CME) or (much less severely) a corotating interaction region (CIR), a high-speed stream of solar wind originating ...
Earth's ring current is responsible for shielding the lower latitudes of the Earth from magnetospheric electric fields. It therefore has a large effect on the electrodynamics of geomagnetic storms . The ring current system consists of a band, at a distance of 3 to 8 R E , [ 1 ] which lies in the equatorial plane and circulates clockwise around ...
The plasmasphere, or inner magnetosphere, is a region of the Earth's magnetosphere consisting of low-energy (cool) plasma.It is located above the ionosphere.The outer boundary of the plasmasphere is known as the plasmapause, which is defined by an order of magnitude drop in plasma density.
fulfills that condition. Here = is the separatrix [13] separating the low latitude magnetosphere with closed geomagnetic field lines at θ ≥ θ m from the polar magnetosphere with open magnetic fieldlines (having only one footpoint on Earth), and τ the local time. θ m ~ 20° is the polar border of the auroral zone. q, Φ co, and τ co are empirical parameters, to be determined from the ...
Magnetic sail animation. A magnetic sail is a proposed method of spacecraft propulsion where an onboard magnetic field source interacts with a plasma wind (e.g., the solar wind) to form an artificial magnetosphere (similar to Earth's magnetosphere) that acts as a sail, transferring force from the wind to the spacecraft requiring little to no propellant as detailed for each proposed magnetic ...