Mariner 10 radiation. The plasma experiment's goal was to study the ionized gases (plasma) of the solar wind, the temperature and density of its electrons, and how the planets affected the velocity of the plasma stream. The experiment contained two components, facing in opposite directions. The Scanning Electrostatic Analyzer was aimed toward the Sun, and could detect positive ions and electrons, which were separated by a set of three concentric hemispherical plates. The Scanning Electron Spectrometer was aimed away from the Sun, and detected only electrons, using just one hemispherical plate. The instruments could be rotated about 60 degrees to either side.
Plasma shaping the tokamak and most stellarators, arrange their magnetic fields so the ions and electrons in the plasma travel around the torus at high velocities. However, as the circumference of a path on the outside of the plasma area is longer than one on the inside, this caused several effects that disrupted the stability of the plasma. During the 1960s a number of different methods were used to try to address these problems. Generally they used a combination of several magnetic fields to cause the net magnetic field inside the device to be twisted into a helix. Ions and electrons following