Space Weather in the Earth's Magnetosphere

Michelle Thomsen

Geosynchronous orbit, where the orbital period is 24 hours and satellites remain continuously over the same location on the surface of the Earth, is home to more than 200 spacecraft, with tasks including communications, weather observations, resource mapping, and military surveillance. It is also an extremely interesting location from the perspective of magnetospheric science because it lies at the interface between the inner magnetosphere, which is dominated by the Earth's intrinsic dipole magnetic field and plasmas originating in the upper atmosphere, and the outer magnetosphere, where the influence of the solar wind is dominant. The environment at geosynchronous orbit is highly variable, with the magnetosphere dynamically responding to variations in the driving solar wind flow, and the conditions there are frequently far from benign. In this talk we will share some of the insights about magnetospheric behavior that have been learned from Los Alamos plasma measurements from a series of geosynchronous satellites over the past decade and a half.