Search Publications

Origin and Evolution of Plasmoids and Flux Ropes in the Magnetotails of Earth and Mars

Eastwood, J. P.; Kiehas, S. A.

This chapter discusses the origin and evolution of plasmoids and flux ropes in Earth's magnetotail, providing an overview of author's current understanding based on recent multipoint and multimission data analysis. It also presents recent results concerning observations of flux ropes in the vicinity of Mars. Understanding the Mars solar wind inter…

Earth's Magnetotail

McPherron, Robert L.

Earth's magnetic tail (magnetotail) was discovered 50 years ago by the first spacecraft to fly downstream of Earth. The magnetotail is a complex structure created by the solar wind. The tail is in fact a very dynamic structure with many internal processes and rapid changes. The magnetospheric substorm is the name given to the collection of phenome…

Substorm Current Wedge at Earth and Mercury

Glassmeier, K. -H.; Slavin, J. A.; Kepko, L. +1 more

This chapter reviews magnetospheric substorms and dipolarizations observed at both Earth and Mercury. It briefly discusses new insights into the physics of the substorm current wedge (SCW) that have been revealed the past few years. The formation and evolution of the SCW are closely tied to the braking of flows convecting flux away from the reconn…

Solar Wind Interaction with Giant Magnetospheres and Earth's Magnetosphere

Delamere, P. A.

This chapter compares the solar wind interaction with Earth and with the giant magnetospheres and discusses implications for the magnetotail. The term "Dungey cycle" used throughout this chapter refers to the idealized situation where opening dayside reconnection drives large-scale (ideally two cells) ionospheric convection and closing reconnectio…

Magnetic Reconnection in Different Environments

Hesse, Michael; Birn, Joachim; Aunai, Nicolas +2 more

This chapter addresses two important aspects of magnetic reconnection: time-dependent rates affected by island formation and the preferred direction of the reconnection line if merging magnetic field components are not anti-parallel. While it is widely known that magnetic reconnection facilitates mass, momentum, and energy transport in plasmas, it…