The Canadian SuperDARN/PolarDARN facility

太阳为地球提供两种能量。首先是维持植物（光合作用）和人类生命所需的辐射热和光能，以及驱动地球表面附近大气中的天气系统。第二类是由太阳风从太阳携带到地球的粒子和磁能，并沉积到地球的空间环境中，在称为磁层的区域中，粒子带电，数百颗电信卫星和越来越多的空间站和航天飞机任务以及未来的行星任务的宇航员都位于此。透过电讯卫星，每天可促成涉及数亿元的商业交易。地球的磁层是它的“空间环境”，其中的“空间天气”对人类和卫星都是恶劣的。在“磁暴”期间，太空天气条件非常危险，因此不能进行太空行走，航空公司的乘客在飞越地球极地地区的航班上受到额外的x射线辐射。超级双极光雷达网络极大地促进了对磁层和空间天气的研究。截至2007年11月，超级双极光雷达网络将由21个雷达组成，北半球14个，南半球7个。这些雷达测量空间天气区的对流模式（“风”系统）。最新的一对雷达是位于Rankin Inlet（自2006年5月11日起运行）和Inuvik（2007年11月）的加拿大偏振雷达。这对超级粒子是独一无二的，因为它被设计用来研究高纬度带电粒子的运动。这些运动主要是由太阳风磁场和地球磁场之间的“重联”驱动的，其中一些磁能被转换为磁层中带电粒子的运动能量。有史以来第一次，地面雷达（偏振雷达）将测量重联驱动的对流，这将有助于更好地了解太空天气。

The Sun provides the Earth with two types of energy. The first is the radiant heat and light energy needed to sustain plant (photosynthesis) and human life and to drive weather systems in the atmosphere near Earth's surface. The second type is the particle and magnetic energy carried from the Sun by the solar wind to Earth and deposited into the Earth's space environment, in the region called the magnetosphere where the particles are electrically charged and where are located hundreds of telecommunications satellites and an increasing number of astronauts for the Space Station and the Shuttle missions and future planetary missions. Through the telecommunication satellites, business transactions involving hundreds of millions of dollars are facilitated each day. The magnetosphere of Earth is its "space environment", in which the "space weather" can be nasty for both humans and satellites. During "magnetic storms", space weather conditions are very dangerous, so space walks are not performed and airline passengers are subjected to extra X-radiation in flights over the polar regions of the Earth. The study of the magnetosphere and space weather is greatly facilitated by the SuperDARN (Super Dual Auroral Radar Network) which, as of Nov. 2007, will consist of 21 radars, 14 in the northern and 7 in the southern hemisphere. These radars measure the convection pattern (the "wind" systems) in the space weather region. The newest pair of radars is the Canadian PolarDARN pair at Rankin Inlet (operating since May 11, 2006) and Inuvik (November, 2007). This SuperDARN pair is unique because it is designed to study the motion of the high latitude charged particles. These motions are driven mainly by "reconnection" between the solar wind magnetic field and Earth's magnetic field, in which some magnetic energy is converted to energy of motion of the charged particles in the magnetosphere. For the first time ever, ground-based radars (PolarDARN) will measure the reconnection-driven convection, which should lead to a much better understanding of space weather.