Like a supersonic jet being blasted with high-speed winds, Earth is constantly being bombarded by a stream of charged particles from the sun known as solar wind.
Just like wind around a jet or water around a boat, these solar wind streams curve around Earth’s magnetic field, or magnetosphere, forming on the sunward side of the magnetosphere a front called a bow shock and stretching it into a wind sock shape with a long tail on the nightside.
Dramatic changes to the solar wind alter the structure and dynamics of the magnetosphere. An example of such changes provides a glimpse into the behavior of other bodies in space, such as Jupiter’s moons and extrasolar planets.
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