12.1 n&v 143 MH

145 spatial and temporal characteristics of magnetic reconnection will fuel the sometimes heated debate over what the phenomenon is like and what it can do. With the launch of NASA’s STEREO mission, expected later this year, larger baselines will become available, and there is hope that the study of solar-wind reconnection can be extended to much larger scales. At the smallest scales, NASA’s Magnetospheric Multi-Scale (MMS) mission, to be launched in 2013, will investigate the kinetic plasma processes near the X-line that allow the frozen field condition to be broken and reconnection to occur. The prospects for finally understanding the nature of reconnection, its ability to couple smallto large-scale phenomena, and the crucial role it plays in various cosmic settings, are excellent. ■