Space Probes Detect Enormous Natural Particle Accelerator

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ESA Cluster and NASA Wind and ACE spacecraft encounters of solar particle jets spanning 2.5 million kilometres in the solar wind. The particle jets (indicated by red arrows) are sandwiched between sheets of opposite magnetic fields. Credits: Matt Dav ...
ESA Cluster and NASA Wind and ACE spacecraft encounters of solar particle jets spanning 2.5 million kilometres in the solar wind. The particle jets (indicated by red arrows) are sandwiched between sheets of opposite magnetic fields. Credits: Matt Davis, Univ. Calif. Berkeley

A fleet of NASA and ESA space-weather probes observed an immense jet of electrically charged particles in the solar wind between the Sun and Earth. The jet, at least 200 times as wide as the Earth, was powered by clashing magnetic fields in a process called "magnetic reconnection". These jets are the result of natural particle accelerators dwarfing anything built on Earth. Scientists build miles-long particle accelerators on Earth to smash atoms together in an effort to understand the fundamental laws of physics.


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