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NASA Launches Four Spacecraft To Study Earth-Sun Magnetism

Posted by Soulskill on from the space-magnets-how-do-they-work dept.

An anonymous reader writes: Late Thursday NASA used an Atlas rocket to put four new, identical spacecraft into orbit. "The quartet of observatories is being placed into an oblong orbit stretching tens of thousands of miles into the magnetosphere — nearly halfway to the moon at one point. They will fly in pyramid formation, between 6 miles and 250 miles apart, to provide 3-D views of magnetic reconnection on the smallest of scales. Magnetic reconnection is what happens when magnetic fields like those around Earth and the sun come together, break apart, then come together again, releasing vast energy. This repeated process drives the aurora, as well as solar storms that can disrupt communications and power on Earth. Data from this two-year mission should help scientists better understand so-called space weather."

21 comments

  1. Open Source on MMS by joelsherrill · · Score: 2

    RTEMS is used as the real-time operating system on multiple computers in the MMS constellation. It is used on the main flight computers as well as instruments. Details in this post:https://lists.rtems.org/pipermail/users/2015-March/028648.html

    1. Re:Open Source on MMS by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Where you can see them call 'FPGA, 'FGPA'! I thought, well that's an honest mistake. But if he spelled CPU as CUP - well, I dunno.

    2. Re:Open Source on MMS by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I wonder how it feels to have your code help run something that orbits the cradle of civilization.

  2. Re:Oh oh Ted Cruz is going to be upset. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    this is why Slashdot is dying.

  3. Re:Oh oh Ted Cruz is going to be upset. by Earthquake+Retrofit · · Score: 1

    See the code words here... "weather" and "earth" in the same paragraph. This is going to tick off Ted Cruz and the extreme conservative republican base.

    >

    Send him into orbit. It wouldn't be the first time a politician grandstanded from space. Preferable as close as possible to one of these magnetic reconnections. "Don't worry Senator, your faith in god will protect you from the energy of a measly 10^16 pounds of TNT."

    --
    Fifty years of Yippie! 1968-2018
  4. Re:Oh oh Ted Cruz is going to be upset. by WGFCrafty · · Score: 1

    Dying.

    Pfffft.

    You just weren't invited to the wake. It was a small ceremony.

  5. Pyramid by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    How do four satellites fly in a "pyramid formation"? A pyramid has five vertices.

    1. Re:Pyramid by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      How do four satellites fly in a "pyramid formation"? A pyramid has five vertices.

      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Four-sided_die

    2. Re:Pyramid by sumdumass · · Score: 1

      Altitude + tetrahedron + ignorance.

      Are you surprised or confused?

      Actually, in some games, they call the flight formation which would appear to be a triangle a pyramid. Perhaps the writer plays some of those games.

    3. Re:Pyramid by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Three sided pyramid... ?

  6. Tap that energy by Julz · · Score: 1

    And at the same time perhaps they will discover how to tap this energy, or at least a small part of it, for efficient power generation.

    --
    When shit hits the fan get some of these https://youtu.be/pY-GncsZ-UE
  7. Re:Oh oh Ted Cruz is going to be upset. by websitebroke · · Score: 1

    Fortunately, the Deep Space Climate Observatory (DSCOVR) made it into space before it could be killed by another republican adminstration.

  8. Oblong Orbit, Anyone? by the+monolith · · Score: 1

    Oh, yes! Another quality piece of journalism, but from AP? Really? Link to Article Presumably, the spacecraft will be giving way to traffic coming from the left as well?

  9. Oh Really? by tomhath · · Score: 3, Informative

    The project was started in 2005, when Republicans controlled both houses of Congress and the White House.

    1. Re:Oh Really? by blue+trane · · Score: 1

      Republicans know that Reagan proved deficits don't matter, but cynically and hypocritically drum up fear of debt when Democrats are in the White House. And Democrats, pussies that they are, fall for it.

    2. Re:Oh Really? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Given that the satellite was already finished and was put into cold storage in 2003 that seems unlikely.

  10. Re:Oh oh Ted Cruz is going to be upset. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Netcraft confirms it! Ted Cruz is collapsing in complete disarray.

  11. Kewl stuff! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    My father, an astro-geo-physicist who specialized in the area of interplanetary fields, solar corona, and such would have loved this! He passed away in 1991. I think he is looking on and nodding his head in approval.

  12. Magnetic reconnection? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    There is no such thing as magnetic reconnection. Even the person who first came up with the idea later came to the conclusion that it was bullshit.