Many of the most dramatic events in the solar system—the spectacle of the Northern Lights, the explosiveness of solar flares, and the destructive impact of geomagnetic storms that can disrupt communication and electrical grids on Earth—are driven in part by a common phenomenon: fast magnetic reconnection. In this process the magnetic field lines in plasma—the gas-like state of matter consisting of free electrons and atomic nuclei, or ions—tear, come back together and release large amounts of energy (Figure 1).
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Source: Phys.org