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Earth's magnetic field deflects most of the solar wind, whose charged particles would otherwise strip away the ozone layer that protects the Earth from harmful ultraviolet radiation. [4] One stripping mechanism is for gas to be caught in bubbles of the magnetic field, which are ripped off by solar winds. [5]
Planetary magnetic poles are defined analogously to the Earth's North and South magnetic poles: they are the locations on the planet's surface at which the planet's magnetic field lines are vertical. The direction of the field determines whether the pole is a magnetic north or south pole, exactly as on Earth.
The source of lower energy protons is believed to be proton diffusion, due to changes in the magnetic field during geomagnetic storms. [23] Due to the slight offset of the belts from Earth's geometric center, the inner Van Allen belt makes its closest approach to the surface at the South Atlantic Anomaly. [24] [25]
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.
The magnetic field of Mars is the magnetic field generated from Mars's interior. Today, Mars does not have a global magnetic field. However, Mars did power an early dynamo that produced a strong magnetic field 4 billion years ago, comparable to Earth's present surface field. After the early dynamo ceased, a weak late dynamo was reactivated (or ...
The dipole magnetic moment of Neptune is about 2.2 × 10 17 T·m 3 (14 μT·R N 3, where R N is the radius of Neptune). Neptune's magnetic field has a complex geometry that includes relatively large contributions from non-dipolar components, including a strong quadrupole moment that may exceed the dipole moment in strength. By contrast, Earth ...
The magnetic field lines of the planet's magnetic field are not stationary. They are continuously joining or merging with magnetic field lines of the interplanetary magnetic field in a process called magnetic reconnection. The joined field lines are swept back over the poles into the planetary magnetic tail. In the tail, the field lines from ...
The magnetic fields of the other giant planets, measured at their surfaces, are roughly similar in strength to that of Earth, but their magnetic moments are significantly larger. The magnetic fields of Uranus and Neptune are strongly tilted relative to the planets' rotational axes and displaced from the planets' centres. [137]