CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. – NASA has launched four identical spacecraft on a billion-dollar mission to study the explosive give-and-take of the Earth and sun’s magnetic fields.
An unmanned Atlas rocket blasted off Thursday night from Cape Canaveral, Florida, carrying NASA’s Magnetospheric Multiscale spacecraft.
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The observatories will be placed into an oblong orbit stretching tens of thousands of miles into the magnetosphere. They will fly in pyramid formation to provide 3-D views of magnetic reconnection on the smallest of scales.
Magnetic reconnection is what happens when magnetic fields come together, break apart, then come together again, releasing vast energy. This process drives the aurora, as well as potentially disruptive solar storms.
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