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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. [1] [2] It is created by a celestial body with an active interior dynamo.
In modern texts and in Earth system science, geosphere refers to the solid parts of the Earth; it is used along with atmosphere, hydrosphere, and biosphere to describe the systems of the Earth (the interaction of these systems with the magnetosphere is sometimes listed).
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 magnetosphere contains charged particles that are trapped from the stellar wind, which then move along these field lines. As the star rotates, the magnetosphere rotates with it, dragging along the charged particles. [13] As stars emit matter with a stellar wind from the photosphere, the magnetosphere creates a torque on the ejected matter.
(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 ...
The term ∂B/∂t is the partial derivative of the field with respect to time; ∇ 2 is the Laplace operator, ∇× is the curl operator, and × is the vector product. The first term on the right hand side of the induction equation is a diffusion term. In a stationary fluid, the magnetic field declines and any concentrations of field spread out.
As with Earth's magnetosphere, the boundary separating the solar wind's plasma from that within Saturn's magnetosphere is called the magnetopause. [2] The magnetopause distance from the planet's center at the subsolar point [ note 1 ] varies widely from 16 to 27 R s (R s =60,330 km is the equatorial radius of Saturn).
The term geophysics classically refers to solid earth applications: Earth's shape; its gravitational, magnetic fields, and electromagnetic fields ; its internal structure and composition; its dynamics and their surface expression in plate tectonics, the generation of magmas, volcanism and rock formation. [3]