Plasma outflow from plasmasphere to magnetosphere (video)

This animation shows the Earth’s plasmasphere – the innermost part of our planet’s magnetosphere – and the plasmaspheric wind, an outward flow of charged particles. The doughnut-shaped plasmasphere is centred around the Earth’s equator and rotates along with it. The steady plasmaspheric wind continuously transfers material from the plasmasphere into the magnetosphere, releasing about 1 kg of plasma every second – almost 90 tonnes a day – into the outer magnetosphere.

Credit: ESA/ATG medialab

• Cluster spacecraft detects elusive space wind (2 July 2013)

• Original video (6.1 MB, 16 s, format)
• Preview image (53.8 KB, 1447x699 px, JPEG format)

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