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Magnetic whirlpools feed Earth’s magnetosphere

6 December 2006

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This image shows a three-dimensional cut-away view of the magnetic 'bubble' surrounding Earth, called magnetosphere. The curly features sketched on the boundary layer are the so-called 'Kelvin-Helmholtz' vortices discovered by Cluster [Hasegawa et al., 2004].

The vortices, or whirlpools, originate where two adjacent flows of electrically charged gas (plasma) travel with different speed. In this case, one of the flows is the heated gas inside the boundary layer of the magnetosphere, the other one is the solar wind just outside it. The white dashed arrow shows the trajectory followed by Cluster when the vortices where discovered.

Credits: ESA/Hasegawa et al

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Schematic of magnetic field lines during reconnection

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In a plasma (a gas of charged particles), during magnetic reconnection, magnetic field lines of opposite direction break and then reconnect, forming an X-line magnetic topology. The newly reconnected field lines accelerate the plasma away from the X-line.

Credits: Center for Visual computing, Univ. of California Riverside

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This simulation shows whirlpools of electrically charged gas (plasma), some 40 000 kilometres across, as those witnessed by ESA’s Cluster in the Earth's magnetosphere on 3 July 2001.

Credits: Dr. Nykyri, Imperial College (UK)

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