But gamma-ray telescopes are also confused by charged particles trapped in the earth's magnetic field.
But since the wind consists of charged particles, it will interact with a magnetic field.
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The charged particles were expected to hit at four million miles an hour.
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The problem has been the connections between the giant magnets that help steer charged particles around the LHC's 27km-long ring.
This causes charged particles that initially came from the Sun to speed up and head out of our solar system.
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It works by using electricity generated from a nuclear reaction to accelerate charged particles out of the back of the spacecraft.
The electrolyte carries electrically charged particles from one electrode to the other.
These are thought to be the sources of cosmic rays, which are high-velocity charged particles (mainly protons) that constantly bombard the earth.
It contains several electrodes, with immovable positively charged particles to attract electrons.
The instruments will measure the diffuse mixture of charged particles and fields which exist in the near-vacuum between the Earth and the Sun.
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Instead of relying on photon pressure, it would enable a spacecraft to be pushed along by the charged particles of the solar wind itself.
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These include "sputtering" erosion - the bombardment of the surface by very fast charged particles (a process similar to sandblasting) - and impacts by meteorites.
These craft will study the interaction between the solar wind (the breeze of electrically charged particles emitted by the sun) and the earth's magnetic field.
For example, in 2007, US researchers built tiny wind engines that created a "breeze" made up of charged particles, or ions, to cool computer chips.
This is where the "wind" of electrically charged particles coming off the Sun is slowed by pressure from the sparse gas found between the stars.
And when the solar wind is stronger, it is better at shielding the earth from high-energy charged particles from outer space known as cosmic rays.
They are known to exist in three types related to three different charged particles - the electron and its lesser-known relatives, the muon and the tau.
The Radiation Belt Storm Probes will map out the density of charged particles across the belts, which are divided into two: an inner belt, and an outer.
There, the hot charged particles cause problems wherever they go.
Effects stemming from the Earth's atmosphere, from ocean tides and from the solar wind of charged particles were all found to be too small to explain the spacecrafts' extra velocity.
Solar storms are violent eruptions on the sun that send a wave of charged particles, called plasma, into space at the speed of more than one million miles per hour.
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The scientific explanation - streams of charged particles from sun storms interacting with electrons in nitrogen and oxygen atoms in the earth's upper atmosphere - does little to demystify the experience.
During Solar Max or solar maximum, the sun tends to exhibit more sunspots and eruptions, and jettison more solar flares, which send powerful streams of charged particles into the solar system.
When Cluster II passes through these so-called polar cusps, instruments on board each of its satellites will measure the magnetic field, electrical current and number of charged particles within the tetrahedron.
The field bends the flight-paths of electrically charged particles.
Dr Greenhalgh's solution was to use a polymer gel-based resin that combines two networks of cross-linking structures, one that holds the material together and the other providing a conduit for charged particles.
The natural phenomenon can be seen in the northernmost regions of the world, including Norway, Iceland, Greenland and Alaska, and is the result of electrically charged particles colliding in the Earth's atmosphere.
Until the launch of the Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer (AMS) experiment in 2011, scientists had compiled a mere anthill of information about the kinds of charged particles, or cosmic rays, that shoot around the universe.
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The radiation belt, which contains "two concentric rings of charged particles trapped by Earth's magnetic fields" doesn't affect current astronauts going to and from space because they are moving too fast to be hit by the radiation.
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Magnetic fields in this swirling mass are twisted into a kind of "magnetic spaghetti, " and electrically charged particles squirt out through this spaghetti at nearly the speed of light, blasting out into the universe across thousands of light-years.
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