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.

[kc8ukw]

We may have to eject the Van Allen belt.

[Hegemony Cricket]

A great disturbance in the Force, there is...

[wastedyears]

Does this mean we’ll finally warm up? It’s cold over here.

[TaraP]

On Dec. 21st, another solar wind stream will arrive, only this time it will hit Earth directly. The stream is spewing from a coronal hole that straddles the sun's equator, which puts our planet squarely in the "cross hairs." The longest night of the year could be a green one; Arctic sky watchers should be alert for auroras.

[SouthDixie]

I’m ducking as a type...

[Paco]

Sounds to me like we need a cloaking device to hide earth from these attacking octupus-like magnetic tentacles. “Scotty! WE NEED MORE POWER!!!

[JRios1968]

Rove, you bastard!

[Kackikat]

ROFL..you people are hilarious today...best comments in a long time, just can’t stop laughing.

Is this from THE HORIZON PROJECT? or some other scientists?

[rjp2005]

Cue the Warning...

[TheWasteLand]

Once more unto the breach, dear particles, once more;
Or close the wall up with our magnetic fields.

[P8riot]

Absolutely.

[Izzy Dunne]

1027 particles per second were flowing into the magnetosphere—that's a 1 followed by 27 zeros.

Uh, no.

[Kackikat]

Don’t think I want one of those electric cars then.

[Izzy Dunne]

I’m ducking as a type...

I'm typing as a duck...

[Brookhaven]

No mention of global warming? Algore is going to be mad.

Everyone knows the heat caused by driving SUVs is causing the Earth’s poles to de-magenetize.

On a serious note, it is scary to think how easily all life on the planet could be destroyed. Not by anthing man is doing.

The Earth has shifted on its axis several times in the past. The magnetic field could weaken. An asterioid could hit the planet. Any would be catastrophic (and there’s nothing we could do about it.)

[alexander_busek]

"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."

10 to the 27th power particles is not so large a quantity.

One mol (a standard unit equal to 6.022 x 10 to the 23rd power particles) is equivalent to 22.4 liters of, e.g., air at standard temperature and pressure. 224,000 liters of air would thus contain about 6 times 10 to the 27th power particles.

So a mere 10 to the 27th power particles per second would be equivalent to about 37,000 liters of air per second.

However, since we are talking about charged particles here, perhaps we should convert that to amperes. 1 A = 6.24 x 10^18 charged particles per second. So 10 to the 27th power charged particles per second would equal about 166 million amps.

Regards,

[sodpoodle]

This appears to be very serious - so could you please put this in language that some of us morons can understand?

For instance: Is it analogous to pulling a hot turkey out of the oven and steaming up my bifocals?

[Cecily]

I believe this is where all the socks missing from people’s dryers went.

[tnlibertarian]

How long until Congress decides to bail out the magnetic field? It’s too big to breach.

[Kackikat]

A green hue, hmmm...won’t that upset the environmentalists as they want to be the green in America?