NASA has rescheduled to 3 p.m. EST Wednesday, Feb. 25, a briefing on an upcoming mission to study magnetic reconnection around the Earth, a fundamental process that occurs throughout the universe where magnetic fields connect and disconnect explosively releasing energy.
The briefing will take place at NASA Headquarters, 300 E St. SW in Washington, and will air live on NASA Television and streamed on the agency’s website.
Called the Magnetospheric Multiscale (MMS) mission, the project will help scientists understand the process of magnetic reconnection, which can accelerate particles up to nearly the speed of light. By studying reconnection near Earth, MMS will help scientists understand reconnection in the atmosphere of the sun and other stars, in the vicinity of black holes and neutron stars, and at the boundary between our solar system’s heliosphere and interstellar space.
The mission consists of four identical spacecraft that will provide the first three-dimensional view of magnetic reconnection. Launch is scheduled for 10:44 p.m. March 12, from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida.
The briefing participants are:
Jeff Newmark, interim director, Heliophysics Division, NASA Headquarters in Washington
Jim Burch, principal investigator, MMS Instrument Suite, Southwest Research Institute, San Antonio
Craig Tooley, MMS Project Manager, NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland
Paul Cassak, associate professor, West Virginia University, Morgantown
Media who want to participate by phone must send an email providing their name, affiliation and telephone number to dwayne.c.brown@nasa.gov by noon Wednesday.
Media and the public also may ask questions during the briefing on Twitter using the hashtag #askNASA.
For more information about the MMS mission, visit:
For NASA TV streaming video, downlink and updated scheduling information, visit:http://www.nasa.gov/nasatv
