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The Earth and most of the planets in the Solar System, as well as the Sun and other stars, all generate magnetic fields through the motion of electrically conducting fluids. [54] The Earth's field originates in its core. This is a region of iron alloys extending to about 3400 km (the radius of the Earth is 6370 km).
Cutaway drawing of two radiation belts around Earth: the inner belt (red) dominated by protons and the outer one (blue) by electrons. Image Credit: NASA. The inner Van Allen Belt extends typically from an altitude of 0.2 to 2 Earth radii (L values of 1.2 to 3) or 1,000 km (620 mi) to 12,000 km (7,500 mi) above the Earth.
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. In the Earth's magnetosphere, the currents are driven by the solar wind and interplanetary magnetic field (IMF) and by bulk motions ...
The magnetosphere of Jupiter is the largest planetary magnetosphere in the Solar System, extending up to 7,000,000 kilometers (4,300,000 mi) on the dayside and almost to the orbit of Saturn on the nightside. [17] Jupiter's magnetosphere is stronger than Earth's by an order of magnitude, and its magnetic moment is approximately 18,000 times ...
South Atlantic Anomaly. The South Atlantic Anomaly (SAA) is an area where Earth 's inner Van Allen radiation belt comes closest to Earth's surface, dipping down to an altitude of 200 kilometres (120 mi). This leads to an increased flux of energetic particles in this region and exposes orbiting satellites (including the ISS) to higher-than-usual ...
Telluric current. A telluric current (from Latin tellūs 'earth'), or Earth current, [1] is an electric current that flows underground or through the sea, resulting from natural and human-induced causes. These currents have extremely low frequency and traverse large areas near or at Earth 's surface. Earth's crust and mantle are host to ...
Schematic view of the different current systems which shape the Earth's magnetosphere. Earth 's ring current is responsible for shielding the lower latitudes of the Earth from magnetospheric electric fields. It therefore has a large effect on the electrodynamics of geomagnetic storms. The ring current system consists of a band, at a distance of ...
Magnetospheric electric convection field. The impact of the solar wind onto the magnetosphere generates an electric field within the inner magnetosphere (r < 10 a; with a the Earth's radius) - the convection field. [1] Its general direction is from dawn to dusk. The co-rotating thermal plasma within the inner magnetosphere drifts orthogonal to ...