NASA’s MMS Captures Magnetic Reconnection in Action

Like sending sensors up into a hurricane, NASA has flown four spacecraft through an invisible maelstrom in space, called magnetic reconnection. Magnetic reconnection is one of the prime drivers of space radiation and so it is a key factor in the quest to learn more about our space environment and protect our spacecraft and astronauts as we explore farther and farther from Earth. MMS is made of four identical spacecraft that launched in March 2015. They fly in a pyramid formation to create a full 3-dimensio