Science and Planeterrella

The Planeterrella was created for outreach activities. It has several unforeseen uses. One of them is ... science !


Scientific papers

This page contains scientific articles dealing with the physics of Planeterrella. These are essentially articles in English, published in scientific journals with referees.
The following article is in German - (Auf Deutch)
Here is a beautiful experimental approach to the magnetopause, as can also be seen with the Planeterrella.
A beautiful study of plasma instabilities in a Terrella :
In the following article, the Terrella is reduced to a magnet. But physics is rigorously (...)

Read more

Articles pure Planeterrella

This page provides scientific and outreach articles directly related to the Planeterrella
The following article- is a description of the physical experience in French. Jean Lilensten, Mathieu Barthélémy, Cyril Simon, Philippe Jeanjacquot, La Planeterrella, une expérience pédagogique en planétologie et physique des plasmas, Bull. Un. Phys., 102, 799-816, 2008
Here, with several more paragraphs, the description in English Freely downloadable- J. Lilensten, Mathieu Barthélemy, Cyril (...)

Read more

Emission Spectrum

Students often ask us what are the lines in the emission spectrum of the Planeterrella. Each corresponds to a particular excitation, a transition from an excited state to another state. As in a game in a newspaper, we propose you to try identifying yourself For this, Mr. Barthélémy has acquired the spectrum below that you can download : will you identify the lines* ?
To compare with the auroral spectrum, you can use the one proposed by NCAR (...)

Read more

Blue auroras at Mars

In 2005, SPICAM (http://www.cnes.fr/web/CNES-fr/1951-spicam.php) onboard the satellite of the European Space Agency spacecraft Mars Express (http: //sci.esa .int / March-express /) observes ultraviolet radiation of the red planet. By alignment maneuvers that can not be done too often, it also allows to observe the emissions of the atmosphere of Mars, on the black sky. But whenever Mars Express flew over a magnetic anomaly, ie an area where the crustal magnetic field is intense, SPICAM (...)

Read more