Forecast: Heavy winds, plasma showers

From Washington, D.C., at the spring meeting of the American Geophysical Union

First view of Earth’s plasmasphere. The circle marks Earth and the line indicates its shadow. NASA

NASA has taken the first pictures from space showing the mysterious motions of ionized gas corralled by Earth’s magnetic field.

Launched March 25, the Imager for Magnetopause-to-Aurora Global Exploration (IMAGE) is depicting the region where this action takes place.