Mysterious electron Cluster found hidden among Van Allen belts

This NASA rendering depicts Earth's Van Allen radiation belts and the path of the Van Allen Probe spacecraft, which were launched in August 2012. 

Data from the spacecraft have confirmed a never-before-seen phenomenon-a long-lived zone of high-energy electrons residing between the inner and outer radiation belts. (Credit: NASA illustration)

U.S. researchers, including a trio from Los Alamos National Laboratory, have witnessed the mysterious appearance of a relatively long-lived zone of high-energy electrons stored between Earth's Van Allen radiation belts.

The surprising findings, discovered by NASA's Van Allen Probes (formerly known as the Radiation Belt Storm Probes), were outlined Thursday in Science Express and during a press conference at NASA headquarters in Washington, D.C.

The research was led by Dan Baker of the University of Colorado, Boulder, Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics.

"Nature keeps on surprising us by producing long-lived harsh environments in space in regions not previously considered," said Los Alamos plasma physicist Reiner Friedel of LANL's Intelligence and Space Research Division. "This finding may impact the planning of future space missions."

The Van Allen radiation belts - named in honor James Van Allen, who discovered them nearly 50 years ago - are a pair of donut shaped zones of charged particles that surround Earth and occupy the inner region of our planet's Magnetosphere.

The outer belt contains extremely high-energy electrons, while the inner belt is comprised of energetic protons and electrons.

The belts have been studied extensively since the dawn of the Space Age, because the high-energy particles in the outer ring can cripple or disrupt spacecraft. Long-term observation of the belts have hinted that the belts can act as efficient and powerful particle accelerators; the recent observations by the Van Allen Probes-a pair of spacecraft launched in August 2012-now seem to confirm this.

Shortly after launch, the spacecraft activated their Relativistic Electron-Proton Telescope (REPT) instruments to measure particles within the belts and their immediate environs.

The instrument immediately detected on September 1, 2012, the presence of a stable zone of high-energy electrons residing between the belts. This donut-shaped third ring nestled between the belts existed for nearly a month before being obliterated by a powerful shockwave of particles emanating from center of the solar system.

Such a distinct, long-lasting ring of high-energy electrons had never before been seen by any prior instrument in space or on Earth.

The findings suggest that the Van Allen Belts somehow capture and store energetic electrons in a circular path around our home planet, perhaps in much the same way as a cyclotron can capture and store charged particles here on Earth.

"One of the main reasons the Van Allen Probe instruments are seeing these new features are their unprecedented sensitivity and rejection of backgrounds," Friedel said.

"As the mission proceeds, we expect further surprises that will challenge our conventional wisdom on the transport, loss and energization processes in these highly energetic electron radiation regions."

Xmas Tree-Type Cluster and the Cone Nebula

Xmas Tree-Type Gaseous Cloud Cluster and the Cone Nebula.

ESA Cluster Mission: Cosmic particle accelerators

ESA's Cluster satellites have discovered that cosmic particle accelerators are more efficient than previously thought.

The discovery has revealed the initial stages of acceleration for the first time, a process that could apply across the Universe.

All particle accelerators need some way to begin the acceleration process. For example, the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at CERN employs a series of small accelerators to get its particles up to speed before injecting them into the main 27 km-circumference ring for further acceleration.

In space, large magnetic fields guide particles known as cosmic rays across the Universe at almost the speed of light, but are notoriously bad at getting them moving in the first place.

Now ESA's Cluster mission has shown that something similar to the 'staging' process used at CERN is happening above our heads in the natural particle accelerators of space.

On 9 January 2005, Cluster's four satellites passed through a magnetic shock high above Earth. The spinning craft were aligned almost perfectly with the magnetic field, allowing them to sample what was happening to electrons on very short timescales of 250 milliseconds or less.

The measurements showed that the electrons rose sharply in temperature, which established conditions favourable to larger scale acceleration.

It had long been suspected that shocks could do this, but the size of the shock layers and the details of the process had been difficult to pin down.

Steven J. Schwartz, Imperial College London, and colleagues used the Cluster data to estimate the thickness of the shock layer. This is important because the thinner a shock is, the more easily it can accelerate particles.

"With these observations, we found that the shock layer is about as thin as it can possibly be," says Dr Schwartz.

Thin in this case corresponds to about 17 km. Previous estimates had only been able to tie down the width of the shock layers above Earth at no more than 100 km.

This is the first time anyone has seen such details of the initial acceleration region.

ESA Cluster Mission: 'Dirty hack' restores Cluster from near loss

Using ingenuity and an unorthodox 'dirty hack', ESA has recovered the four-satellite Cluster mission from near loss.

The drama began in March, when a crucial science package stopped responding to commands – one of a mission controller's worst fears.

Since a pair of spectacular dual launches in 2000, the four Cluster satellites have been orbiting Earth in tightly controlled formation.

Each of the 550 kg satellites carries an identical payload to investigate Earth's space environment and its interaction with the solar wind – the stream of charged particles pouring out from the Sun.

Among each satellite's 11 instruments, five comprise the Wave Experiment Consortium (WEC), which makes important measurements of electrical and magnetic fields.

All four sensors must work together to make carefully orchestrated observations – the loss of any one could seriously affect the unique 'four-satellite science' delivered by the mission.

On 5 March, the WEC package on Cluster's number 3 satellite, Samba, failed to switch on. Ground controllers at ESA's European Space Operations Centre, in Darmstadt, Germany, immediately triggered a series of standard recovery procedures, none of which succeeded.

Even worse, no status information could be coaxed out of the instruments.

NASA Themis Cluster discovers magnetic Spacequakes

Researchers using NASA's fleet of five THEMIS spacecraft have discovered a form of space weather that packs the punch of an earthquake and plays a key role in sparking bright Northern Lights. They call it "the spacequake."

A spacequake is a temblor in Earth's magnetic field. It is felt most strongly in Earth orbit, but is not exclusive to space. The effects can reach all the way down to the surface of Earth itself.

"Magnetic reverberations have been detected at ground stations all around the globe, much like seismic detectors measure a large earthquake," says THEMIS principal investigator Vassilis Angelopoulos of UCLA.

It's an apt analogy because "the total energy in a spacequake can rival that of a magnitude 5 or 6 earthquake," according to Evgeny Panov of the Space Research Institute in Austria. Panov is first author of a paper reporting the results in the April 2010 issue of Geophysical Research Letters (GRL).

In 2007, THEMIS discovered the precursors of spacequakes. The action begins in Earth's magnetic tail, which is stretched out like a windsock by the million mph solar wind. Sometimes the tail can become so stretched and tension-filled, it snaps back like an over-torqued rubber band. Solar wind plasma trapped in the tail hurtles toward Earth.

On more than one occasion, the five THEMIS spacecraft were in the line of fire when these "plasma jets" swept by. Clearly, the jets were going to hit Earth. But what would happen then? The fleet moved closer to the planet to find out.

"Now we know," says THEMIS project scientist David Sibeck of the Goddard Space Flight Center. "Plasma jets trigger spacequakes."

According to THEMIS, the jets crash into the geomagnetic field some 30,000 km above Earth's equator. The impact sets off a rebounding process, in which the incoming plasma actually bounces up and down on the reverberating magnetic field. Researchers call it "repetitive flow rebuffing."

It's akin to a tennis ball bouncing up and down on a carpeted floor. The first bounce is a big one, followed by bounces of decreasing amplitude as energy is dissipated in the carpet.

"We've long suspected that something like this was happening," says Sibeck. "By observing the process in situ, however, THEMIS has discovered something new and surprising."