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If the pressure from particles within the magnetosphere is neglected, it is possible to estimate the distance to the part of the magnetosphere that faces the Sun.The condition governing this position is that the dynamic ram pressure from the solar wind is equal to the magnetic pressure from the Earth's magnetic field: [note 1] (()) where and are the density and velocity of the solar wind, and ...
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]
The average distance between Neptune and the Sun is 4.5 billion km (about 30.1 astronomical units (AU), the mean distance from the Earth to the Sun), and it completes an orbit on average every 164.79 years, subject to a variability of around ±0.1 years. The perihelion distance is 29.81 AU, and the aphelion distance is 30.33 AU.
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 dense clusters of lines are within the Earth's core. [27] The magnetic field of the Earth, and of other planets that have magnetic fields, is generated by dynamo action in which convection of molten iron in the planetary core generates electric currents which in turn give rise to magnetic fields. [15]
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 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]
If the Earth's magnetic fields were exactly dipolar, the north pole of a magnetic compass needle would point directly at the North Geomagnetic Pole. In practice, it does not because the geomagnetic field that originates in the core has a more complex non-dipolar part, and magnetic anomalies in the Earth's crust also contribute to the local ...