Murugesu was written by Jason Arunn.
The magnetic fields surrounding some planets have been recreated in a lab. The 3D model may show us how space weather affects satellites.
Any object that is immersed in a stream of charged particles will be able to affect their movement. The region around the object is called a magnetosphere. Earth has a shield against charged particles from the sun called a magnetosphere.
He says that it controls all kinds of space weather, like the weather in the Northern Hemisphere, and whether or not space satellites get destroyed.
A 3D model that can recreate these magnetospheres in miniature has been developed.
The researchers used a large plasm device at the University of California, Los Angeles to mimic the magnetic field of the entire solar system, while a laser replicated the solar winds with fast- moving charged particles. A small donut-shaped magnet acted as a magnetic planetary body.
Studying the system allows the team to explore the behavior of magnetospheres in 3D.
The work is an improvement over previous models. It is difficult to study the magnetospheres of Earth and other planets directly by sending a spaceship.
The lab-based magnetosphere model is useful for researchers who want to test their theoretical models. They could use this to figure out how satellites would fare in space.
This sort of experiment provides an interesting way to probe the physics of the interaction between a stellar wind and a magnetised planet. He is unsure how useful it will be to model the more complex phenomena seen in the magnetosphere.
The physics of plasms is a journal reference.
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