{"id":223324,"date":"2025-10-13T12:09:35","date_gmt":"2025-10-13T17:09:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2025\/10\/magnetic-switchback-detected-near-earth-for-the-first-time"},"modified":"2025-10-13T12:09:35","modified_gmt":"2025-10-13T17:09:35","slug":"magnetic-switchback-detected-near-earth-for-the-first-time","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2025\/10\/magnetic-switchback-detected-near-earth-for-the-first-time","title":{"rendered":"Magnetic \u2018switchback\u2019 detected near Earth for the first time"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a class=\"aligncenter blog-photo\" href=\"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog.images\/magnetic-switchback-detected-near-earth-for-the-first-time.jpg\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p>In recent years, NASA\u2019s Parker Solar Probe has given us a close-up look at the sun. Among the probe\u2019s revelations was the presence of numerous kinks, or \u201cswitchbacks,\u201d in magnetic field lines in the sun\u2019s outer atmosphere. These switchbacks are thought to form when solar magnetic field lines that point in opposite directions break and then snap together, or \u201creconnect,\u201d in a new arrangement, leaving telltale zigzag kinks in the reconfigured lines.<\/p>\n<p>In their article <a href=\"https:\/\/agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com\/doi\/10.1029\/2025JA034180\" target=\"_blank\">published<\/a> in the <i>Journal of Geophysical Research: Space Physics<\/i>, E. O. McDougall and M. R. Argall now report observations of a switchback-shaped structure in Earth\u2019s magnetic field, suggesting that switchbacks can also form near planets.<\/p>\n<p>The researchers discovered the switchback while analyzing data from NASA\u2019s Magnetospheric Multiscale mission, which uses four Earth-orbiting satellites to study Earth\u2019s magnetic field. They detected a twisting disturbance in the outer part of Earth\u2019s magnetosphere\u2014the bubble of space surrounding our planet where a cocktail of charged particles known as <a href=\"https:\/\/phys.org\/tags\/plasma\/\" rel=\"tag\" class=\"\">plasma<\/a> is pushed and pulled along Earth\u2019s <a href=\"https:\/\/phys.org\/tags\/magnetic+field+lines\/\" rel=\"tag\" class=\"\">magnetic field lines<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In recent years, NASA\u2019s Parker Solar Probe has given us a close-up look at the sun. Among the probe\u2019s revelations was the presence of numerous kinks, or \u201cswitchbacks,\u201d in magnetic field lines in the sun\u2019s outer atmosphere. These switchbacks are thought to form when solar magnetic field lines that point in opposite directions break and [\u2026]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":662,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[48,2028],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-223324","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-particle-physics","category-satellites"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/223324","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/662"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=223324"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/223324\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=223324"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=223324"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=223324"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}