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A rough analogy to describe reconnection goes like this. Imagine holding an onion out a car window as you drive along the highway. (Don't try this at home, says Torbert.) The onion represents Earth with its surrounding magnetic field lines; the air streaming past represents the solar wind. On a normal car ride, the air rushes by the onion, which is none the worse for wear. Now imagine a different car ride where magnetic energy in the air streaming past transforms the outer layers of onion skin into something hot and fluid (think hot lava); on the back side of the onion, it reverts to onion skin. This conversion of magnetic energy into mechanical energy and back again as the solar wind surges over the Earth's magnetic fields—reconnection— was thought to be impossible until experiments aboard spacecraft in the '70s and '80s showed it was indeed occurring. On the Sun, reconnection is thought to be responsible for solar flares and the much larger coronal mass ejections, and scientists believe it also occurs near black holes and pulsars.

"Once we understand more about reconnection, we'll be able to predict space weather," says Torbert, referring to the solar storms that can wreak havoc with power grids on Earth and take out the communications and weather satellites that orbit the Earth's equator. He points out that one of the biggest hurdles currently facing manned flights to other planets—like Mars—is the threat of radiation from these solar storms, which can kill astronauts unless they have enough advance notice to seek shelter in a lead- or water-lined hideaway.

Understanding reconnection will also help scientists who are trying to confine plasmas in order to produce fusion energy—an inexhaustible, environmentally friendly and safe alternative to both nuclear energy and fossil fuels. Plasmas are notoriously hard to confine, and the sudden and unpredictable release of energy—in other words, reconnection—is the last thing a fusion power plant operator wants.

This is not the first time that Torbert and his team have built instruments that can study reconnection: They designed and built detectors for a project called Cluster, which, like their new project, had four satellites to give a three-dimensional view of particle behavior. Cluster was launched from French Guiana in 1996. As the team watched on a live satellite feed in Durham, the French-built rocket exploded 43 seconds after lift-off, flinging the charred remnants of the satellites into a mangrove swamp. "It was unbelievable to watch a decade's worth of work blow up," Torbert recalls. But NASA determined the project was too important to give up, and four years later, team members held their breath as Cluster II was launched—this time successfully—with UNH-built instruments on board.

Like most of UNH's space scientists, Torbert teaches physics classes while working with fellow researchers on numerous satellite projects. "One of the strengths of space science at UNH is that because the researchers here have a history of collaboration with each other and a history of successful missions, UNH is held in high regard," he says. "That helps us when it comes to winning new grants and attracting talented people from top programs."

A Very Good Year

In the Morse Hall office of astrophysicist Jim Connell, the shelves contain ping pong balls and the board game Othello. It's not evidence of Connell's hobbies—they're props for his Physics 444 class on "Myths and Misconceptions About Nuclear Science." (He uses a ping pong ball to illustrate atomic dimensions: If Durham were an atom, he explains, its nucleus would be the size of a ping pong ball. Othello, with its equal number of black and white game pieces, helps him explain the half-life of nuclear decay.)

It was this same think-outside-the-box mentality that helped him win the center's latest project, an $8 million contract to build two instruments for the National Polar-orbiting Operational Environmental Satellite System. The mission's three satellites will collect data on Earth's weather, atmosphere, oceans, land and near-space environment; Connell's instrument design was selected to measure high-energy charged particles.

One day, exasperated with a physics problem, Connell went outside for a walk. A naval history buff, he began thinking about battleships and how their armored sides were built at an angle to give the ship extra protection—incoming shells would have to travel farther to penetrate the hull. "The same principle applies to particle detectors," says Connell, who realized that if he mounted three detectors in a row, each at a different angle, he would be able to triangulate the particles' direction from space.

Yet another new project—making 2005 a very good year indeed for UNH space science—is a $5 million grant awarded by NASA to space physicists Eberhard Mšbius and Marty Lee to create an instrument for the Interstellar Boundary Explorer mission. Mšbius and Lee will be helping to build extremely sensitive cameras to capture images of atoms at the point where the solar wind collides with the edge of the solar system beyond Pluto.

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