From Press Release with this heading :- "The content of this press release is embargoed until 1900 London time on 19 April 2000" ] 

EXTRACT:-
 Many theories of dramatic energy release events in the universe
are based on this process [ 'magnetic reconnection' ].

 Hence experimental proof of its existence has been a matter of 
great importance, both for laboratory and space experiments.

 Over the years indirect and direct evidence has been accumulated
by satellite measurements in the Earth’s environment, the clearest
signatures being the jets of plasma found at the magnetopause, the
boundary between solar wind and Earth’s magnetic field, when the
magnetic field configuration was favourable for reconnection to 
occur.

 But all of these measurements, being made with one spacecraft at
a time, could only capture one of the two symmetric jets shooting 
out of the magnetic field configuration with the shape of a 
stretched letter X.

 In February 1998, a very fortunate constellation existed for the
German satellite Equator-S, built by the Max-Planck-Institut für
extraterrestrische Physik at Garching near Munich, and the 
Japanese-US satellite Geotail. 

 Being both at the morningside magnetopause, Equator-S above,
Geo-tail below the equator, they could measure for the first time
both jets, one directed northward, the other southward, for a
period exceeding one hour. 


(Paper by Phan et al. to appear in Nature 20 April 2000 )

Contacts: Gerhard Haerendel (Tel: (510) 643-5512) and Tai Phan (Tel: (510) 643-5505) at Space Sciences Laboratory, University of California, Berkeley, CA 94720; Fax: (510) 643-8302, E-mail:
hae@ssl.berkeley.edu and phan@ssl.berkeley.edu;

and Professor Toshifumi Mukai at ISAS, Japan, (Tel: +81-427-59-8164),
E-mail: mukai@stp.isas.ac.jp

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