Duck! Plasma bullets are zinging past Earth.

[HysteryDiagnosis]

Dear mods.... this is a NASA article... do what you will with it.

http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2008/24jul_plasmabullets.htm



The discovery came on what began as a quiet day, Feb 26, 2008. Arctic skies were dark and Earth's magnetic field was still. High above the planet, the five THEMIS satellites had just arranged themselves in a line down the middle of Earth’s magnetotail—a million kilometer long tail of magnetism pulled into space by the action of the solar wind.


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That's when the explosion occurred.
A little more than midway up the THEMIS line, magnetic fields erupted, "releasing about 1015 Joules of energy," says Angelopoulos. "For comparison, that's about as much energy as a magnitude 5 earthquake."

[MicaelS]

1. Uhhh that's 10 to the 15 power joules, not 1015 joules n/t