All missions on board for NASA heliophysics research

Scientists have been studying the near-Earth environment for the better part of a century, but many mysteries — like where the energetic particles that pervade the area originate and become energized — still remain. In a new type of collaborative study, scientists combined data from 16 separate NASA and Los Alamos National Laboratory spacecraft to understand how a particle phenomenon in the magnetic environment around Earth occurs. These events, called substorms, can cause auroras, disrupt GPS communications and, at their most intense, damage power grids. …read more