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Earth's magnetic field, also known as the geomagnetic field, is the magnetic field that extends from Earth's interior out into space, where it interacts with the solar wind, a stream of charged particles emanating from the Sun.
It was later postulated that hotspots are fed by streams of hot mantle rising from the Earth's core–mantle boundary in a structure called a mantle plume. [6] Whether or not such mantle plumes exist has been the subject of a major controversy in Earth science, [4] [7] but seismic images consistent with evolving theory now exist. [8]
Spots from two sequential cycles co-exist for several years during the years near solar minimum. Spots from sequential cycles can be distinguished by direction of their magnetic field and their latitude. The Wolf number sunspot index counts the average number of sunspots and groups of sunspots during specific intervals. The 11-year solar cycles ...
One of Earth’s deepest mysteries lies beneath our feet: the planet’s inner core. Made of iron and nickel, the hot, solid sphere is about 70% the size of the moon.
The Bangui magnetic anomaly in central Africa and the Kursk magnetic anomaly in eastern Europe (both in red) In geophysics, a magnetic anomaly is a local variation in the Earth's magnetic field resulting from variations in the chemistry or magnetism of the rocks. Mapping of variation over an area is valuable in detecting structures obscured by ...
The intersection between the magnetic and rotation axes of the Earth is located not at the Earth's center, but some 450 to 500 km (280 to 310 mi) away. Because of this asymmetry, the inner Van Allen belt is closest to the Earth's surface over the south Atlantic Ocean where it dips down to 200 km (120 mi) in altitude, and farthest from the Earth ...
Study of Earth's magnetosphere began in 1600, when William Gilbert discovered that the magnetic field on the surface of Earth resembled that of a terrella, a small, magnetized sphere. In the 1940s, Walter M. Elsasser proposed the model of dynamo theory, which attributes Earth's magnetic field to the motion of Earth's iron outer core.
Compared to the corona's usual closed magnetic field that arches between regions of opposite magnetic polarity, the open magnetic field of a coronal hole allows solar wind to escape into space at a much quicker rate. This results in decreased temperature and density of the plasma at the site of a coronal hole, as well as an increased speed in ...