Magnetic Fields

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The NASA computer animation illustrates the Earth’s space storm shield in action and shows our planet’s magnetic fields as a dynamic system.

The solar wind, a thin, high-velocity electrified gas, or plasma, blows constantly from the Sun at an average speed of 250 miles per second (400 kilometers/sec). In the animation this is represented as a stream of yellow particles flowing from the Sun. The solar wind impacts the Earth’s magnetic field, represented by the blue lines. As the solar wind flows past the Earth’s magnetic field, it generates enormous electric currents that heat Earth’s space storm shield, which is a layer within the ionosphere (Earth’s electrically charged outer atmosphere). Satellite observation has shown that this causes electrically charged oxygen atoms (oxygen ions) to be ejected from the ionosphere into space.

The expelled oxygen ions are represented by the green particle streams. The ejected oxygen ions gain tremendous speed as they leave the atmosphere, become trapped by the Earth’s magnetic field and ultimately encircle the Earth, where they form a billion-degree plasma cloud around the planet, represented by the red cloud. The blue doughnut shape represents the high-speed flow of these particles around the Earth.

The red ‘ring of fire’ around the Earth’s polar regions represents the contribution of the particles to the aurora (the northern and southern lights).

This is part of the mechanism by which earth is constantly bombarded by charged particles from the sun as we travel through space and time. It’s as if we are living our our lives on a component of an electrostatic generator whose scale defies comprehension.

Peter Terezakis
ITP
Tisch School of the Arts
http://www.terezakis.com

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What if we think of our planet as a spherical capacitor?

Two concentric plates, separated by a dielectric, moving through the volume of space.

Formula to determine the capacitance of a sphere

Using this model, earth ground would be our planet, the insulating dielectric would be the atmosphere, and the second capacitive component (plate) would be the ionosphere.
Capacitors often arc/leak/discharge on the work bench:

Which would mean that there should be a change in electrical potential as we leave earth ground/change observational altitude:

I know it’s more than a little whacky, and way over-simplified, but I keep thinking about the dynamic differences in electrical potential between moving bodies of air and earth ground as well as between the ionosphere and the earth.

I can’t help but wonder since there is enough electromotive force to operate an electroscope, bias a MOSFET, might there not be a way to construct an antenna to at least charge a battery, if not power a city, or the planet, using the power which surrounds us on a planetary and/or a cosmic scale?

If the answers to these questions were easy, or already out there, Big Oil would be out of business, and they are not.

The scale and scope of this line of thinking is mind-boggling and very interesting to me. There is a  recurring common symmetry in Tesla’s drawings, NASA imagery, and models of basic physics which I find intellectually compelling and aesthetically satisfying.  How cool would it be to continually charge super-capacitors through a system of antennas, powering our cities and our homes, by the EMF naturally generated by nature?

Peter Terezakis
ITP
Tisch School of the Arts
http://www.terezakis.com