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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