Earth's magnetic shield reacts to a coronal mass ejection

Unpredictable and temperamental, the Sun is a violently raging star. Every second, it sends out millions of tonnes of material, some of which heads straight in our direction. Most dramatically, solar flares and coronal mass ejections blast clouds of particles and radiation into space at speeds close to the speed of light. But even during ‘calm’ moments the Sun streams a constant flow of electrons and protons in our direction.

In this GIF we are looking down towards the north pole. We see a coronal mass ejection from the Sun colliding with Earth's magnetic field. As the charged particles from the Sun collide with neutral particles around Earth, X-ray light is emitted. ESA's Smile mission will look down at the Sun-facing side of Earth's magnetic field to see how it changes as it responds to the Sun. Smile's X-ray images will give us a completely new picture and transform our understanding of Earth's defence against the Sun.

Smile (the Solar wind Magnetosphere Ionosphere Link Explorer) is a collaboration between the European Space Agency (ESA) and the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS).

[Image description: GIF showing the Sun blasting matter towards Earth. Around Earth is a magnetic field, with a bright patch pointing towards the Sun, curved around Earth like a shield. As the matter from the Sun hits this shield, it gets brighter and gets pushed towards Earth.]