From Swarm to Juno // Sky in February

From Swarm to Juno – how modern magnetic missions are helping to solve fundamental mysteries. Talk by Dr Ciaran Beggan, a senior research scientist at the British Geological Survey.

Any measurement of the magnetic field contains information about a number of sources, ranging from the conditions inside a planet that generate the main field to the influence of space weather on its magnetosphere. Long term monitoring allows us to disentangle the contributions as some sources are location specific while others are time dependent. In the past decade the ESA Swarm mission has made close to a billion measurements of Earth’s magnetic field, while NASA’s Juno mission has orbited Jupiter since mid-2016 investigating the detailed structure of the largest planetary field in the solar system and sensing below the cloud surface. In this talk, we will look at the contributions both missions have made to our knowledge and understanding of planetary magnetic fields.

Dr Ciaran Beggan is a senior research scientist at the British Geological Survey. Based in Edinburgh, he has worked in geomagnetic field research since 2005 publishing on topics such as forecasting core field change and the impact of space weather effects on the UK power grid. He has been involved with the ESA Swarm mission since 2011.

We will also have a presentation on the Sky in February from Mark Phillips.

Members will join us via Zoom and visitors can join us live on our YouTube channel.