The instruments will measure the diffuse mixture of charged particles and fields which exist in the near-vacuum between the Earth and the Sun.

BBC: NEWS | Science/Nature | Chinese-European mission set for launch

The world we see is full of them, but the world of physics, our ultimate arbiter on the nature of things, is made up strictly of colourless fields and particles.

ECONOMIST: Science and history of colour

Powerful and rapidly changing magnetic fields were looking to see tiny particles of water travelling along the larger nerve fibres.

BBC: Scans reveal intricate brain wiring

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.

ENGADGET: Space elevator ride may kill humans due to ionizing radiation