The European Space Agency (ESA) is Europe’s gateway to space. Its mission is to shape the development of Europe’s space capability and ensure that investment in space continues to deliver benefits to the citizens of Europe and the world.
Find out more about space activities in our 23 Member States, and understand how ESA works together with their national agencies, institutions and organisations.
Exploring our Solar System and unlocking the secrets of the Universe
Go to topicProtecting life and infrastructure on Earth and in orbit
Go to topicUsing space to benefit citizens and meet future challenges on Earth
Go to topicMaking space accessible and developing the technologies for the future
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Schematic illustration of the process of energy cascade in a turbulent plasma, such as that found in Earth's magnetosheath, the boundary region between the solar wind and the magnetosphere around our planet.
Energy is injected to the plasma on scales of hundreds of thousands of kilometres, then density and magnetic fluctuations in the highly turbulent medium cause it to cascade to smaller and smaller scales, until it is dissipated to particles at scales around one kilometre.
A study based on data from Cluster and NASA's THEMIS mission has estimated how much energy is transferred from larger to smaller scales within the magnetosheath, revealing that turbulence is the key, making this process a hundred times more efficient than in the solar wind.
This study indicates that about 10-13 J of energy is transferred per cubic metre every second in this region of Earth's magnetic environment.