A magnetic reconnection X-line extending more than 390 Earth radii in the solar wind

Magnetic reconnection in a current sheet converts magnetic energy into particle energy, a process that is important in many laboratory(1), space(2,3) and astrophysical contexts(4-6). It is not known at present whether reconnection is fundamentally a process that can occur over an extended region in space or whether it is patchy and unpredictable in nature(7). Frequent reports of small-scale flux ropes and flow channels associated with reconnection(8-13) in the Earth's magnetosphere raise the possibility that reconnection is intrinsically patchy, with each reconnection X-line ( the line along which oppositely directed magnetic field lines reconnect) extending at most a few Earth radii (R-E), even though the associated current sheets span many tens or hundreds of R-E. Here we report three-spacecraft observations of accelerated flow associated with reconnection in a current sheet embedded in the solar wind flow, where the reconnection X-line extended at least 390R(E) ( or 2.5 x 10(6) km). Observations of this and 27 similar events imply that reconnection is fundamentally a large-scale process. Patchy reconnection observed in the Earth's magnetosphere is therefore likely to be a geophysical effect associated with fluctuating boundary conditions, rather than a fundamental property of reconnection. Our observations also reveal, surprisingly, that reconnection can operate in a quasi-steady-state manner even when undriven by the external flow.