Polar lights in a jar

Laboratory visualisation of solar wind interaction with Earth’s magnetic field. The auroras (polar lights), Van Allen radiation belt, Earth’s magnetosphere, “bow shock” and a solar coronal hole are emphasized with the Planeterrella experiment, a vacuum chamber in the shape of a bell jar with Sun on the left (large metallic sphere) and Earth on the right (small metallic sphere). The two spheres are magnetized and connected into a cathode-anode circuit. Planeterrella is inspired by Kristian Birkeland’s Terrella and has been developed by Jean Lilensten at the Institute of Planetology and Astrophysics in Grenoble (CNRS, France). The current setup is build at the Institute of Space Science and the Institute of Laser, Plasma and Radiation Physics in Romania by M. Teodorescu, G. Voitcu, E. Teodorescu, C. Stancu, M. Echim and G. Dinescu.