ESA… The Decade-Old Cluster Challenge (Satellites)

[SatNews] Over the past decade, Cluster’s four satellites have provided extraordinary insights into the largely invisible interaction between the Sun and Earth.

A constellation of four spacecraft flying in formation around Earth since September 1, 2000, Cluster has been making the most detailed investigation ever of the interaction between the solar wind and Earth’s protective magnetic field, depicting it in three dimensions. The solar wind is a hot, thin, electrically charged gas continuously ejected by the Sun. Depending on the intensity of the magnetic activity of the Sun, the solar wind can transform into a violent solar storm. Among other results, Cluster has shown how the solar wind particles break through the protective magnetic shield hitting Earth’s atmosphere. During critical space weather conditions, solar storms can lead to disruption of communication, computers, power supplies and navigation systems on Earth. Cluster has now spent a decade passing in and out of our planet’s magnetic field, returning invaluable data. New observations, made when Cluster recently crossed the heart of the auroral acceleration region, will also be presented.