Earth's magnetosphere, aurora and radiation belts
Space plasmas are captured, energised and lost by interacting with Earth's magnetic field. Using in-situ and remote sensing observations and modelling, we seek to understand these physical processes.
Earth's magnetosphere describes the region around our planet controlled by the global magnetic field. This region, populated by plasma from both the lower atmosphere and the solar wind, is a highly complex and variable system. The magnetosphere responds strongly to external driving from the solar wind and internal dynamics. How dynamic processes, such as storms and substorms, are driven and the response of the system to these processes are current open questions for the field.
Through use of spacecraft and ground based observations, we are exploring the features of the magnetosphere and the key processes that occur. In particular, we study the source and loss processes of the radiation belt population during geomagnetic storms, the triggering of the substorm process and the substorm energy budget.
The principal tool we use for magnetospheric research is data from the ESA 4-spacecraft Cluster mission and China/ESA 2-spacecraft Double Star mission. UCL/MSSL is the Principal Investigator Institute for the Electron Spectrometer instrument (PEACE) flown on all 6 of these spacecraft. We also use data from the GOES, THEMIS, and the Van Allen Probes, and from a range of ground based instruments (e.g. the CARISMA magnetometer array).