With a mission to study and have a greater understanding of a phenomenon called ‘magnetic reconnection’, United Launch Alliance rocket- Atlas V 421 was successfully launched at 10:44 p.m. EDT on Thursday from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, Florida. NASA’s four Magnetospheric Multiscale or MMS spacecraft were placed one on top of the other on the rocket and were later positioned in the Earth’s orbit in less than two hours after the launch. These identical observatories will be deployed into a pyramid formation for providing the very first 3D view of reconnection that occurs in the Earth’s magnetic space environment (magnetosphere).
Magnetic reconnection is believed to be acting as a catalyst for the powerful explosions that are happening in the solar system. It takes place at the time when the magnetic fields link together, disconnect, and reconfigure explosively. During this fundamental process, billions of megatons of trinitrotoluene (TNT) of energy is released. These explosions are capable of sending the nearby space particles at about the speed of light. The study of the phenomenon will also provide deep understanding of these events that can damage present-day technological systems such as GPS navigation, communications networks, and electrical power grids. It will also help to acquire knowledge about the processes in the sun and other stars atmosphere, surroundings of black holes and neutron stars, and also at the borderline that is between the heliosphere of the solar system and interstellar space.
The spacecraft will fly in a fixed formation while advancing through the areas of reconnection activity. The MMS consists of sensors for measuring the space environment and instruments that are sensitive enough to notice a difference equivalent to a 4 volt change in space. It is the fourth assignment in the NASA Solar Terrestrial Probes (STP) Program.
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