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A rendering of the magnetic field lines of the magnetosphere of the Earth.. In astronomy and planetary science, a magnetosphere is a region of space surrounding an astronomical object in which charged particles are affected by that object's magnetic field.
A geomagnetic storm, also known as a magnetic storm, is a temporary disturbance of the Earth's magnetosphere caused by a solar wind shock wave. The disturbance that drives the magnetic storm may be a solar coronal mass ejection (CME) or (much less severely) a corotating interaction region (CIR), a high-speed stream of solar wind originating ...
Schematic of the Birkeland or Field-Aligned Currents and the ionospheric current systems they connect to, Pedersen and Hall currents. [1]A Birkeland current (also known as field-aligned current, FAC) is a set of electrical currents that flow along geomagnetic field lines connecting the Earth's magnetosphere to the Earth's high latitude ionosphere.
The following is a chronology of discoveries concerning the magnetosphere.. 1600 - William Gilbert in London suggests the Earth is a giant magnet. 1741 - Hiorter and Anders Celsius note that the polar aurora is accompanied by a disturbance of the magnetic needle.
The largest magnetospheric-ionospheric current variations, resulting in the largest external magnetic field variations, occur during geomagnetic storms and it is then that the largest GIC occur. Significant variation periods are typically from seconds to about an hour, so the induction process involves the upper mantle and lithosphere .
The plasmasphere, or inner magnetosphere, is a region of the Earth's magnetosphere consisting of low-energy (cool) plasma.It is located above the ionosphere.The outer boundary of the plasmasphere is known as the plasmapause, which is defined by an order of magnitude drop in plasma density.
Venus and Mars do not have radiation belts, as their magnetospheric configurations do not trap energetic charged particles in orbit around the planet. Geomagnetic storms can cause electron density to increase or decrease relatively quickly (i.e., approximately one day or less). Longer-timescale processes determine the overall configuration of ...
(This simple definition assumes a noon-midnight plane of symmetry, but closed fields lacking such symmetry also must have cusps, by the fixed point theorem.) The amount of solar wind energy and plasma entering the actual magnetosphere depends on how far it departs from such a "closed" configuration, i.e. the extent to which Interplanetary ...