The Earth’s magnetosphere

DEC 01, 1975

Far from being an empty cavity, as was once believed, the Earth’s magnetic environment is filled with a diversity of plasma, wave and field conditions.

DOI: 10.1063/1.3069238

Syun‐Ichi Akasofu

Louis J. Lanzerotti

The growth of satellite observations over the last 15 years, together with increasingly sophisticated ground‐based measurements, has brought the study of Earth’s electromagnetic environment to a new era of development. This study has grown to a broad discipline that overlaps magnetism, astrophysics and plasma physics. Important understandings have been achieved in many areas including auroral phenomena, distributions and interactions of plasmas and waves in the magnetosphere, the physics of wave–energetic‐particle interactions, and the identification of magnetic‐field‐aligned currents.

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More about the Authors

Syun‐Ichi Akasofu. Geophysical Institute of the University of Alaska, Fairbanks, Alaska.

Louis J. Lanzerotti. Bell Laboratories, Murray Hill, N.J..