MaleStrom in Space - Made with Clipchamp

Like sending sensors up into a hurricane, NASA has flown four spacecraft through an invisible maelstrom in space, called magnetic reconnection. Magnetic reconnection is one of the prime drivers of space radiation and so it is a key factor in the quest to learn more about our space environment and protect our spacecraft and astronauts as we explore farther and farther from Earth.

A new paper printed on May 12 in Science, provides the first observations from inside a magnetic reconnection event. The research shows that magnetic reconnection is dominated by the electrons in space and the physics that drives them – thus providing the first ever information for what powers this fundamental process in nature.