A flux transfer event (FTE) occurs when a magnetic portal opens in the

Earth Earth is the third planet from the Sun and the only astronomical object known to harbor life. While large volumes of water can be found throughout the Solar System, only Earth sustains liquid surface water. About 71% of Earth's surface ...

magnetosphere 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. It is created by a celestial body with an active interior dyna ...

through which high-energy particles flow from the

Sun The Sun is the star at the center of the Solar System. It is a nearly perfect ball of hot plasma, heated to incandescence by nuclear fusion reactions in its core. The Sun radiates this energy mainly as light, ultraviolet, and infrared radi ...

. This connection, while previously thought to be permanent, has been found to be brief and very dynamic. The

European Space Agency , owners = , headquarters = Paris, Île-de-France, France , coordinates = , spaceport = Guiana Space Centre , seal = File:ESA emblem seal.png , seal_size = 130px , image = Views in the Main Control Room (120 ...

's four Cluster spacecraft and NASA's five

THEMIS In Greek mythology and religion, Themis (; grc, Θέμις, Themis, justice, law, custom) is one of the twelve Titan children of Gaia and Uranus, and the second wife of Zeus. She is the goddess and personification of justice, divine order, f ...

probes have flown through and surrounded these FTEs, measuring their dimensions and identifying the particles that are transferred between the magnetic fields.

Formation

Earth's magnetosphere and the Sun's magnetic field are constantly pressed against one another on the dayside of Earth. Approximately every eight minutes, these fields briefly merge, forming a temporary "portal" between the Earth and the Sun through which high-energy particles such as

solar wind The solar wind is a stream of charged particles released from the upper atmosphere of the Sun, called the corona. This plasma mostly consists of electrons, protons and alpha particles with kinetic energy between . The composition of the sol ...

can flow. The portal takes the shape of a magnetic cylinder about the width of Earth. Current observations place the portal at up to 4 times the size of Earth.

Simulations

Since Cluster and THEMIS have directly sampled FTEs, scientists can

simulate A simulation is the imitation of the operation of a real-world process or system over time. Simulations require the use of models; the model represents the key characteristics or behaviors of the selected system or process, whereas the ...

FTEs on computers to predict how they might behave. Jimmy Raeder of the

University of New Hampshire The University of New Hampshire (UNH) is a public land-grant research university with its main campus in Durham, New Hampshire. It was founded and incorporated in 1866 as a land grant college in Hanover in connection with Dartmouth College, mov ...

told his colleagues simulations show that the cylindrical portals tend to form above Earth's

equator The equator is a circle of latitude, about in circumference, that divides Earth into the Northern and Southern hemispheres. It is an imaginary line located at 0 degrees latitude, halfway between the North and South poles. The term can al ...

and then roll over Earth's winter pole. In December, FTEs roll over the

north pole The North Pole, also known as the Geographic North Pole or Terrestrial North Pole, is the point in the Northern Hemisphere where the Earth's axis of rotation meets its surface. It is called the True North Pole to distinguish from the Magn ...

; in July they roll over the

south pole The South Pole, also known as the Geographic South Pole, Terrestrial South Pole or 90th Parallel South, is one of the two points where Earth's axis of rotation intersects its surface. It is the southernmost point on Earth and lies antipod ...

Flux transfer events beyond Earth

Magnetic fields similar to Earth's are common throughout known space and many undergo similar flux transfer events. During its second flyby of the planet on October 6, 2008, the NASA probe

MESSENGER ''MESSENGER'' was a NASA robotic space probe that orbited the planet Mercury between 2011 and 2015, studying Mercury's chemical composition, geology, and magnetic field. The name is a backronym for "Mercury Surface, Space Environment, Geoche ...

discovered that Mercury’s magnetic field shows a magnetic reconnection rate ten times higher than Earth's. Mercury's proximity to the Sun only accounts for about a third of the reconnection rate observed by MESSENGER and the cause of this discrepancy is not currently known. Most recently, it has been found that the same phenomenon, also known as a 'magnetic rope', can be observed at

Saturn Saturn is the sixth planet from the Sun and the second-largest in the Solar System, after Jupiter. It is a gas giant with an average radius of about nine and a half times that of Earth. It has only one-eighth the average density of Earth; h ...

. The findings prove that at times Saturn "behaves and interacts with the Sun in much the same way as Earth".

References

Magnetic Portals Connect Sun and Earth

External links

Planetary science Space plasmas {{astrophysics-stub

Formation

Simulations

Flux transfer events beyond Earth

See also

References

External links