Scientists Can Create Mini Solar Eruptions With The Magnetic Reconnection Experiment

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True to its name, the Magnetic Reconnection Experiment is all about the study of magnetic reconnection: the phenomenon that takes place when charged gases known as plasmas get close to one another. When that happens, their magnetic field lines break apart and reconnect, releasing an explosive amount of energy on par with millions of tons of dynamite. A geomagnetic storm begins as a single solar flare, which erupts into a coronal mass ejection, which zaps our magnetosphere with a monstrous dose of energy, and magnetic reconnection is behind every step in the process. Makes sense to study how it happens, right?

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MRX researchers mimic this process by sending 10,000 volts of electricity into a chamber filled with hydrogen gas. The electricity superheats the gas to the level of 100,000º C, and boom: magnetic reconnection. It happens in one thousandth of a second, and researchers repeat the process around 300 times a day.

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One big mystery about magnetic reconnection is how it can happen so fast. Current theories predict that it should occur thousands of times more slowly than it does. Getting to the bottom of that and other questions could improve our predictions of solar eruptions and geomagnetic storms so we can take precautions and better protect both the people on Earth and astronauts in space. It could even tell us more about how our sun and other stars formed.

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