ESA’s ‘Swarm’ Mission to Probe Earth’s Magnetic Field
By
The objective of the Swarm mission is to provide the best ever survey of the geomagnetic field and its temporal evolution, and gain new insights into improving our knowledge of the Earth’s interior and climate. The Swarm concept consists of a constellation of three satellites in three different polar orbits between 400 and 550 km altitude. High-precision and high-resolution measurements of the strength and direction of the magnetic field will be provided by each satellite. In combination, they will provide the necessary observations that are required to model various sources of the geomagnetic field. GPS receivers, an accelerometer and an electric field instrument will provide supplementary information for studying the interaction of the magnetic field with other physical quantities describing the Earth system — for example, Swarm could provide independent data on ocean circulation. The multi-satellite Swarm mission will be able to take full advantage of a new generation of magnetometers enabling measurements to be taken over different regions of the Earth simultaneously. Swarm will also provide monitoring of the time-variability aspects of the geomagnetic field, this is a great improvement on the current method of extrapolation based on statistics and ground observations. The geomagnetic field models resulting from the Swarm mission will further our understanding of atmospheric processes related to climate and weather and will also have practical applications in many …
Video Rating: 5 / 5
Twitter
Facebook
9 Comments
August 23rd, 2011 at 6:55 pm
24,900miles is Earth’s Circumference
Poles Shift Every 25,000years
Coincidence?? Well you might wann buy some Real Estate on Europa
August 23rd, 2011 at 7:29 pm
Ashes to ashes dust to dust….
August 23rd, 2011 at 7:45 pm
@noggin100 – The solar magnetic field is actually undergoing its flip as we speak — it is a process, not an event like flipping a light switch on and off. And the Earth’s magnetic field flipped polarity nearly 800,000 years ago — not December 2009; however, our own planet IS overdue for its next reversal, and many scientists believe it is underway.
August 23rd, 2011 at 8:34 pm
I’m am aware the suns magnetic polarity flips every 11 years, the next flip is due in 2012 making satellite & electrical disruption probable due to massive predicted solar storms. The only thing between us & the storm is the Earths Magnetosphere which itself shows erratic behaviour ie: it flipped polarity in December 2009 .
August 23rd, 2011 at 9:09 pm
If anyone has read Charles Hapgoods book of 1958 fronted by Einstein, this suggests when ice covered the earth ,that the earth wobbled & this altered the continents , plus the polarity of the earth altered by up to 40 deg. The Scientist in this clip suggests he doesn’t know why the magnetic poles are shifting, this in the last 150 years & accelerating.
August 23rd, 2011 at 9:48 pm
He needs to read Hapgood’s book & it might give him a pointer or two that it might just be the ice melt at the poles due to global warming that’s altering the earth’s spin into more of a wobble.
August 23rd, 2011 at 10:15 pm
Finally, I read gravity is less on earth now than that originally calculated ,this suggesting earths spin is moving off axis.
August 23rd, 2011 at 10:42 pm
GONG not working today due to snow.Snow……mmmm see GONGS web site
Earth also has a musical tone …. E flat 20th octave and changing. Plus earth is supposed to have static field ,but the frequency change from 7.8 mhz peaking at 14mhz and hovering at 11 mhz is worrying,has the Bouc-Wen model of hysteresis analysis been used to look at magnetosphere field change relative to the variation in earth frequency ? But hey, what do I know about it ?
August 23rd, 2011 at 10:45 pm
The earths frequency is in the range 7.5 to 12 mhz so I am told.Has this frequency changed too over time ?