Truemors
Image Credit: NASA Scientific Visualization Studio
Original Caption:
An artist's concept of Earth's magnetic field connecting to the sun's--a.k.a. a "flux transfer event"--with a spacecraft on hand to measure particles and fields.
(Magnetic Portals Connect Sun and Earth)
http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2008/30oct_ftes.htm
http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2008/images/ftes/breach_strip.jpg
Most RecentMost Recommended Comments (3)
at 13:27 on November 2nd, 2008
Does anyone out there have an "animation" of an FTE?? These tubes form when two fields collide or interact. I would like a visual, on how this works. It seems to be more like an elongated magnetic bubble....than anything else I can relate to.
at 21:52 on November 2nd, 2008
Try NASA's Scientific Visualization Studio:
http://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/
They have a number of visualizations. I'm pretty sure the image came from there; I just can't find the specific still or video it came from at the moment. If I do at some point, I'll add the link.
Try browsing keywords such as "coronal mass ejection," "solar wind," "magnetic reconnection," etc. Several of those pages have animations and still visualizing the "flux tubes," etc.
Being that they're flows of charged particles along magnetic field lines, they sound suspiciously like "field-aligned currents" or "Birkeland currents."
Best,
~Michael
at 22:03 on November 2nd, 2008
I think that some visualizations and animations are here:
http://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/vis/a010000/a010100/a010106/index.html
Actually, I think one of the stills is the image I uploaded... This came from the "Magnetic Reconnection" keyword, under Proton Aurora. Thought it sounded familiar.
I don't think "magnetic reconnection" is an accurate term or paradigm, and that Alfvén was correct in dismissing it as pseudoscience under Maxwell's equations, etc. (can't 'cut' magnetic fields, no 'magnetic monopoles,' no 'open' field lines.):
(Double layers and circuits in astrophysics)
http://ntrs.nasa.gov/archive/nasa/casi.ntrs.nasa.gov/19870013880_1987013880.pdf
But, that's perhaps neither here nor there? The visualizations are pretty good.
Replace the term "reconnection" with "field-aligned current" or "Birkeland current," and I think the visuals still hold up, more-or-less and the terms are more accurate in describing the interaction. Just my opinion, of course.
Regards,
~Michael