With the aim of making the best possible use of existing satellites, ESA and Canada have made a deal that turns Swarm into a four-satellite mission to shed even more light on space weather and features such as the aurora borealis.In orbit since 2013, ESA’s three identical Swarm satellites have been returning a wealth of information about how our magnetic field is generated and how it protects us from dangerous electrically charged atomic particles in the solar wind.Canada’s Cassiope satellite carries three instrument packages, one of which is e-POP. It delivers information on space weather which complements that provided by Swarm. Therefore, the mission teams began looking into how they could work together to make the most of the two missions.To make life easier, it also just so happens that Cassiope’s orbit is ideal to improve Swarm’s readings.And now, thanks to this international cooperation and formalised through ESA’s Third Party Mission programme, e-POP has effectively become a fourth element of the Swarm mission. It joins Swarm’s Alpha, Bravo and Charlie satellites as Echo.
Unlike our geographic North Pole, which is in a fixed location, magnetic north wanders. This has been known since it was first measured in 1831, and subsequently mapped drifting slowly from the Canadian Arctic towards Siberia.One of the practical consequences of this is that the World Magnetic Model has to be updated periodically with the pole’s current location. The model is vital for many navigation systems used by ships, Google maps and smartphones, for example.One of the many areas of research using information from Swarm focuses on explaining why the pole has picked up such a pace – and a subject being discussed at this week’s Living Planet Symposium. Between 1990 and 2005 magnetic north accelerated from its historic speed of 0–15 km a year, to its present speed of 50–60 km a year. In late October 2017, it crossed the international date line, passing within 390 km of the geographic pole, and is now heading south.In fact, recently, the World Magnetic Model had to be updated urgently because of the speed at which the pole is moving.ESA’s Swarm mission is not only being used to keep track of magnetic north, but scientists are using its data to measure and untangle the different magnetic fields that stem from Earth’s core, mantle, crust, oceans, ionosphere and magnetosphere.Our magnetic field exists because of an ocean of superheated, swirling liquid iron that makes up the outer core. Like a spinning conductor in a bicycle dynamo, this moving iron creates electrical currents, which in turn generate our continuously changing magnetic field. Tracking changes in the magnetic field can, therefore, tell researchers how the iron in the core moves.
Research is showing that changes in the pattern of core flow between 1970 and 1999 elongated the Canadian lobe, significantly weakening its signature on Earth's surface, causing the pole to accelerate towards Siberia.Simple models taking account of this process and describing future geomagnetic change predict that over the next decade the north magnetic pole will continue on its current trajectory and will travel a further 390–660 km towards Siberia.
What’s worse than dealing with deadly #SpaceDebris and violent #SpaceWeather?Dealing with both at the same time!@esa_swarm has dodged a potential collision at short notice, right in the middle of its 10-week climb to escape the Sun’s wrath:https://esa.int/Space_Safety/Swarm_dodges_collision_during_climb_to_escape_Sun_s_wrath
"Collision avoided! 💥 In the wee small hours this morning Swarm-Alpha was moved out of harm's way - space debris in the form of a rocket body 🚀 that has been threatening our inner duo 🫣 Thanks to the hard work of the @esaoperations Space Debris Office for guiding us clear!
Collision avoided! 💥 No fireworks for Swarm Charlie this weekend thanks to the timely work of the space debris office, flight dynamics team & more @esaoperations, who swerved us out of the way of a small spacecraft early on Sunday morning 🚀 It’s busy up there!
It's getting busier. This is the 6th time we’ve had to move one of the Swarm satellites out of harm’s way this year, and the 22nd time we’ve had to call in a collision avoidance manoeuvre operation 🫣 That’s compared to 13 in the whole of 2021.
Approximately 41 000 years ago, Earth’s magnetic field briefly reversed during what is known as the Laschamp event. During this time, Earth’s magnetic field weakened significantly—dropping to a minimum of 5% of its current strength—which allowed more cosmic rays to reach Earth’s atmosphere.Scientists at the Technical University of Denmark and the German Research Centre for Geosciences used data from ESA’s Swarm mission, along with other sources, to create a sounded visualisation of the Laschamp event. They mapped the movement of Earth’s magnetic field lines during the event and created a stereo sound version which is what you can hear in the video.The soundscape was made using recordings of natural noises like wood creaking and rocks falling, blending them into familiar and strange, almost alien-like, sounds. The process of transforming the sounds with data is similar to composing music from a score.
