A Giant Breach in Earth's Magnetic Field

NASA ^ | Dec 16th, 2008

[TaraP]

Dec. 16, 2008: NASA's five THEMIS spacecraft have discovered a breach in Earth's magnetic field ten times larger than anything previously thought to exist. Solar wind can flow in through the opening to "load up" the magnetosphere for powerful geomagnetic storms. But the breach itself is not the biggest surprise. Researchers are even more amazed at the strange and unexpected way it forms, overturning long-held ideas of space physics.

"At first I didn't believe it," says THEMIS project scientist David Sibeck of the Goddard Space Flight Center. "This finding fundamentally alters our understanding of the solar wind-magnetosphere interaction."

The opening was huge—four times wider than Earth itself," says Wenhui Li, a space physicist at the University of New Hampshire who has been analyzing the data. Li's colleague Jimmy Raeder, also of New Hampshire, says "1027 particles per second were flowing into the magnetosphere—that's a 1 followed by 27 zeros. This kind of influx is an order of magnitude greater than what we thought was possible."

The event began with little warning when a gentle gust of solar wind delivered a bundle of magnetic fields from the Sun to Earth. Like an octopus wrapping its tentacles around a big clam, solar magnetic fields draped themselves around the magnetosphere and cracked it open. The cracking was accomplished by means of a process called "magnetic reconnection." High above Earth's poles, solar and terrestrial magnetic fields linked up (reconnected) to form conduits for solar wind. Conduits over the Arctic and Antarctic quickly expanded; within minutes they overlapped over Earth's equator to create the biggest magnetic breach ever recorded by Earth-orbiting spacecraft.

[El Gato]

I wonder if she realizes that if she fires off that rocket on her back, it will burn her buns off? :)

And they are such nice buns.

[usmcobra]

That’s no rocket motor!

It’s a miniature impulse engine, I can feel the impulse effects from here.

[El Gato]

It is the magnetic field surrounding the earth that keeps the solar wind from stripping away the earth's atmosphere. We lose our atmosphere, and life is done with.

Not really the magnetic poles do this reversal thing aperiodically and while it has effects, life does not die out.

It might happen soon, geologically speaking, like in the next 500-1500 years

[El Gato]

It’s a miniature impulse engine

It'll still burn her buns off.

I can feel the impulse effects from here.

So can I.