United space in Europe
Cut-away view of Earth’s magnetosphere
Science & Exploration

Cut-away view of Earth’s magnetosphere

06/12/2006 847 views 7 likes 203105 ID
  • HI-RES JPEG [1.77 MB]

Thank you for liking

You have already liked this page, you can only like it once!

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.

  • ESA/Hasegawa et al
  • Space Science
  • Cluster
  • Space environment Space environment Space environment
Three-dimensional cut-away view of Earth's magnetosphere
Science & Exploration

Three-dimensional cut-away view of Earth's magnetosphere

Image 733 views 4 likes
Cut-away foursome
Enabling & Support

Cut-away foursome

Image 1422 views 12 likes
Cutaway view of possible internal structure of Venus
Agency

Cutaway view of possible internal structure of Venus

Image 3904 views 5 likes
Earth’s bow shock and magnetosphere
Enabling & Support

Earth’s bow shock and magnetosphere

Image 1121 views 10 likes
Cutaway diagram of a Cluster spacecraft
Enabling & Support

Cluster cutaway

Image 1087 views 9 likes