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The second pair of the European Space Agency’s Cluster II satellites was
launched successfully from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan last week. The
satellites, on their way to rendezvous with the first pair of spacecraft
launched last month, will study how speeding particles from the Sun affect the
magnetosphere—the Earth’s magnetic shield. The original Cluster mission
exploded during Ariane 5’s maiden flight in 1996.