Solar Wind Breaches Earth's Magnetic Shield

  • Credit

    NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center Scientific Visualization Studio

Reconnection: Solar Wind Breaches the Earth's Magnetic Shield

The Far Ultraviolet camera abord the IMAGE spacecraft captured this view of a proton aurora (the bright spot near the center of the view) as well as the ring of the electron aurora. The protons for this aurora came from the incoming solar wind. The made it though the Earth's magnetic shield in a magnetic reconnection event higher in the magnetosphere which was detected by the Cluster satellite. Note: A 'corner' appears in the data in the beginning as the IMAGE spacecraft moves into a position where it can view the entire north polar region.

A movie of the IMAGE/FUV view of the aurora, re-projected onto the Earth's polar cap.

Metadata

  • Sensor

    IMAGE/FUV

  • Animation ID

    2861

  • Video ID

    None

  • Start Timecode

    00:00:00:00

  • End Timecode

    00:00:00:00

  • Animator

    Tom Bridgman

  • Studio

    SVS

  • Writer

    William Steigerwald

  • Visualization Date

    2003/12/01

  • Scientist

    Harald Frey (University of California Berkeley), Tai Phan (University of California Berkeley)

  • Keywords

    Aurora, Magnetic Reconnection, Earth, Solar Wind

  • DLESE Subject

    Space science

  • Data Date

    2000-09-18T01:29:00 - 2000-09-18T09:28:48

  • Pao ID

    G03-068

  • Story URL

    http://www.gsfc.nasa.gov/topstory/2003/1203image_cluster.htm

  • Animation Type

    Regular