NASA probes will study how solar wind triggers potentially dangerous "space weather"

SpaceX launched twin satellites for NASA Wednesday that will study how the electrically-charged solar wind interacts with Earth's magnetic field, creating constantly changing and occasionally dangerous "space weather" affecting satellites, electrical grids and other critical systems. The identical TRACERS satellites will operate in the magnetosphere, "the region around our Earth that is dominated by the planet's magnetic field, and it protects us from the stellar radiation and really from everything else that's going on in space," said Joseph Westlake, director of NASA's solar physics division. More

(Source: CBS News - Jul 24)