The first high-resolution data from the European Southern Observatory's (ESA) three-satellite swarm revealed the weakening of the Earth's magnetic field as well as the migration of magnetic North towards Siberia.
The magnetic field protects Earth cosmic radiation and charged particles, an ESA news release reported. Swarm measurements taken over the past six months show the general trend of the field's weakening, especially over the Western hemisphere; the images did show that the magnetic field has strengthened over the southern Indian Ocean since January.
The changes are based on magnetic signals from the Earth's core. In the coming months the researchers hope to uncover the source of other contributions, such as the "mantle, crust, oceans, ionosphere and magnetosphere," the news release reported. This research could reveal processes that occur deep within our planet as well as solar activity-related space weather; this insight could help scientists better-understand why the magnetic field is weakening.
"These initial results demonstrate the excellent performance of Swarm," Rune Floberghagen, ESA's Swarm Mission Manager said in the news release. "With unprecedented resolution, the data also exhibit Swarm's capability to map fine-scale features of the magnetic field."
Swarm is continuing the work of the Danish Ørsted satellite (which is still operational) as well as the German Champ mission. The main instrument utilized by swarm is the Vector Field Magnetometer, which was provided by the Technical University of Denmark.
"Denmark's National Space Institute, DTU Space, has a leading role - together with 10 European and Canadian research institutes - in the Swarm Satellite Constellation Application and Research Facility, which produces advanced models based on Swarm data describing each of the various sources of the measured field," the news release stated.
"I'm extremely happy to see that Swarm has materialised," Kristian Pedersen, Director of DTU Space said in the news release.
