Earth’s Magnetic Field Driving Oxygen… Part II
“We are beginning to realize just how many interactions can take place between the solar wind and the atmosphere,” says Nilsson , Swedish Institute of Space Physics, headed a team of space scientists who analyzed the data from ESA’s “Cluster”—their formation-flying quartet of satellites.
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“We are beginning to realize just how many interactions can take place between the solar wind and the atmosphere,” says Nilsson, Swedish Institute of Space Physics, headed a team of space scientists who analyzed the data from ESA’s “Cluster”—their formation-flying quartet of satellites.
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When collected data was captured from ESA’s Cluster format, it was gathered over the poles of Earth. The Cluster satellites were flying about 30,000 to 64,000 kilometers altitude, while earlier observations in the 1980s to the 1990s showed that “escaping ions” were actually traveling faster each time there was an increase in altitude. This made the team realize that some form of acceleration mechanism was involved, which brought about several developing proposals.
The Cluster study has discovered what this unknown mechanism involves, with their latest data during the earlier part of the mission, running from February 2001 to December 2005 with ESA approving an extension from December 2005 to December 2009. The extension was added in order to allow the very first measurements of space plasmas –small and large scales at the same time—in addition to the sampling of virgin geo-space regions.
The entire mission will bring about ESA’s most highly-detailed investigation they have ever done, looked at ways in which Earth and the Sun interacts, and changing many previous theories. The first Cluster launch occurred on July 16, 2000 with two satellites, while the second pair launched one month later. The pair of satellites were released, one right after the other with each spacecraft performing six maneuvers on a major level. Previously proposed in November of 1982, it was ready for launch in 1996—with the original proposal to study the cusp and magnetotail magnetosphere regions”, with a polar orbiting mission.
When ESA launched its Cluster satellites, each time two of them were placed in an elliptical orbit, varying in height from 200 to 18,000 kilometers above Earth. Released one after the other, they used their own “on-board” propulsion systems to reach their final operational orbit—19,000 to 119,000 kilometers from Earth. Consisting of more than 250 Co-Investigators from ESA Member states, the United States, Canada, China, Czech Republic, Hungary, India, Israel, Japan, Russia, and 11 Principal Investigators—the ESA Project Scientist is a scientific community with a mission.
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