Slated to launch in 2024, NASA’s Electrojet Zeeman Imaging Explorer (EZIE) will be the first mission to image the magnetic fingerprint of the auroral electrojets — intense electric currents flowing high above Earth’s poles that are central to the electrical circuit coupling the planet’s magnetosphere to its atmosphere.

Led by the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory (APL), EZIE will use a trio of small satellites to characterize and record the electrojets’ structure over space and time. It will fill gaps in our understanding of this space weather phenomenon and provide findings that scientists can apply to other magnetized planets, both within and outside our solar system.