The planeterrella

The planeterrella


OSUG has developed an auroral simulator, Planeterrella. The experience is splendid, it allows the spectators, like giants in the space, to admire the relations between the Sun and the planets, and to understand how the magnificent polar auroras are formed.







The experiment

A star emits energy in two forms: radiation and electrical particles (also called "stellar wind" or "solar" wind in the case of the sun). A planet receives energy from its star, that is, the radiation and the stellar wind. It is this energy which, in contact with the earth’s magnetic field, is at the origin of the aurora borealis. Our experience proposes to simulate this interaction.
There are several configurations for the Planeterrella to simulate a large number of interactions between stars and planets such as Uranus and Neptune, Ganymede and Jupiter, jets and stellar rings and even the interaction between a magnetized exoplanet and a nearby star.


© Jean Lilensten / IPAG / OSUG, Pierre Jacquet / OSUG, David Bernard, Guillaume Grono