A brief history of magnetospheric physics during the space age

Abstract

After 1958, when scientific satellites began exploring the Earth magnetic environment, many puzzling phenomena could be directly examined, especially the polar aurora and disturbances of the Earth's magnetic field [see Stern, 1989a]. The notion of the solar wind, also introduced in 1958, helped clarify the role of the Sun in driving such phenomena. The large‐scale structure of the magnetosphere, the space region dominated by the Earth's magnetic field, was gradually revealed within the next decade: its trapped particles, its boundary, and its long magnetic tail on the nightside. Inevitably, however, at a more fundamental level, the new discoveries led to new questions about the transfer of energy, the flow patterns of plasmas and electric currents, the acceleration of the aurora, and transient events such as magnetic substorms and storms, which energized ions and electrons. Though significant progress has occurred in some of these areas, many unresolved issues still remain. This review outlines the history of magnetospheric research, draws some general conclusions, and provides an extensive bibliography.

Collisionless plasma modeling in an arbitrary potential energy distribution

“…The self-consistent formation of a field-aligned potential drop due to field-aligned currents has been considered since the early 1970s, 6,34-37 and there are several good discussions of this topic available. 38,39 From the present model, the final result of the particle flux calculation along the field line will yield a general relation for the current density. The distributions presented in Sec.…”

A comparison of the formation and evolution of magnetic flux ropes in solar coronal mass ejections and magnetotail plasmoids

“…Sketch of the formation of a plasmoid in the Earth's magnetotail via reconnection at a near‐Earth X line [from Stern , 1996]. …”

Observation of two distinct, rapid loss mechanisms during the 20 November 2003 radiation belt dropout event

“…The trapped, energetic electron flux which makes up the Earth's radiation belts consists of an inner zone ( L < 2) which is relatively stable and an outer zone ( L > 3) which is highly dynamic and can vary by orders of magnitude over timescales ranging from minutes to decades [ Blake et al , 1992; Li et al , 1993; Baker et al , 1994; Selesnick and Blake , 1997; Onsager et al , 2002]. Although the radiation belts have been studied for over 4 decades (e.g., see historical account by Stern [1996]), and the two‐zone structure of the quiet time radiation belts has been explained in terms of inward radial diffusion and loss to the atmosphere [ Lyons and Thorne , 1972], many of the processes responsible for the rapid variability of the outer belt are not fully understood [e.g., Friedel et al , 2002; Reeves et al , 2003; Green et al , 2004].…”