Energy injection, transport, and dissipation in Earth's magnetosphere.

The Earth's magnetosphere is a region occupied by many artificial satellites, and also is a region that spacecraft must cruise during the deep-space exploration. In this sense, the Earth's magnetosphere is closely related to human activity and is a candidate for us to expand our living space. Generally, the Earth's magnetosphere can preclude most energetic particles from the Sun and the interstellar space, effectively protecting human beings on the Earth from being attacked and thus making the Earth to be a habitable planet. However, in some conditions, the Earth's magnetosphere becomes dynamic and energetic, and consequently may damage the artificial satellites, threaten the astronauts' health, and disrupt the ground infrastructure, which leads to a decline in the national economy. Therefore, investigating how energy is injected into the magnetosphere, how it is transported in the magnetosphere, and how it is ultimately dissipated in the magnetosphere are the key issues in space physics. Targeting these key issues, in this paper, we review the recent progress on them. Particularly, we introduce the relevant scientific questions, models, methods, and spacecraft missions, for better building a physical link among the energy injection, transport, and dissipation in the magnetosphere, present an energy chain of the magnetosphere, reveal the relationship between such energy chain and the space weather events, and discuss the forecasting and warning methods for energetic-particle events in the magnetosphere. The magnetospheric energy chain discussed in this paper will help us reveal the mechanisms of space weather events, establish the models of space environment, and forecast the disastrous space weather events. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]