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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 dynamic pressure of the wind dominates over the magnetic pressure through most of the Solar System (or heliosphere), so that the magnetic field is pulled into an Archimedean spiral pattern (the Parker spiral [6]) by the combination of the outward motion and the Sun's rotation. In near-Earth space, the IMF nominally makes an angle of ...
The current density J is itself the result of the magnetic field according to Ohm's law. Again, due to matter motion and current flow, this is not necessarily the field at the same place and time. However these relations can still be used to deduce orders of magnitude of the quantities in question.
In the height region between about 85 and 200 km altitude on Earth, the ionospheric plasma is electrically conducting. Atmospheric tidal winds due to differential solar heating or due to gravitational lunar forcing move the ionospheric plasma against the geomagnetic field lines thus generating electric fields and currents just like a dynamo coil moving against magnetic field lines.
This current reduces the magnetic field at the Earth's surface. [27] Particles that penetrate the ionosphere and collide with the atoms there give rise to the lights of the aurorae while also emitting X-rays. [28] The varying conditions in the magnetosphere, known as space weather, are largely driven by solar
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 ...
Schematic view of the different current systems which shape the Earth's magnetosphere. In many MHD systems most of the electric current is compressed into thin nearly-two-dimensional ribbons termed current sheets. [10] These can divide the fluid into magnetic domains, inside of which the currents are relatively weak.
Plasmas exhibit more complex second-order behaviors, studied as part of magnetohydrodynamics. A simulation of a charged particle being deflected from the Earth by the magnetosphere. Thus in the "closed" model of the magnetosphere, the magnetopause boundary between the magnetosphere and the solar wind is outlined by field