A magnetosphere is formed when a stream of charged particles, such as the solar wind, interacts with and is deflected by the intrinsic magnetic field of a planet or similar body. Earth is surrounded by a magnetosphere, as are the other planets with intrinsic magnetic fields: Mercury, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune. Jupiter's moon Ganymede has a small magnetosphere — but it is situated entirely within the magnetosphere of Jupiter, leading to complex interactions. The ionospheres of weakly magnetized planets such as Venus and Mars set up currents that partially deflect the solar wind flow, but do not have magnetospheres, per se.
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Theories about the solar plasma stream and its interaction with Earth were published as early as 1931. During the next several decades multiple scientists, including Sydney Chapman and Hannes Alfvén, proposed a variety of mechanisms and explanations.[1] The Earth's magnetosphere was first measured in 1958 by Explorer 1 during the research performed for the International Geophysical Year.[2][3] In August and September 1958, Project Argus was performed to test a theory about the formation of radiation belts that may have tactical use in war.
In 1959 Thomas Gold proposed the name "magnetosphere" when he wrote:
The magnetosphere of Earth is a region in space whose shape is determined by the Earth's internal magnetic field, the solar wind plasma, and the interplanetary magnetic field (IMF).[5] The boundary of the magnetosphere ("magnetopause") is roughly bullet shaped, about 15 RE abreast of Earth and on the night side (in the "magnetotail" or "geotail") approaching a cylinder with a radius 20-25 RE. The tail region stretches well past 200 RE, and the way it ends is not well known.
The outer neutral gas envelope of Earth, or geocorona, consists mostly of the lightest atoms, hydrogen and helium, and continues beyond 4-5 RE, with diminishing density. The hot plasma ions of the magnetosphere acquire electrons during collisions with these atoms and create an escaping "glow" of energetic neutral atoms (ENAs)[6] that have been used to image the hot plasma clouds by the IMAGE[7] and TWINS[8] missions.
The upward extension of the ionosphere, known as the plasmasphere, also extends beyond 4-5 RE with diminishing density, beyond which it becomes a flow of light ions called the polar wind that escapes out of the magnetosphere into the solar wind. Energy deposited in the ionosphere by auroras strongly heats the heavier atmospheric components such as oxygen and molecules of oxygen and nitrogen, which would not otherwise escape from Earth's gravity. Owing to this highly variable heating, however, a heavy atmospheric or ionospheric outflow of plasma flows during disturbed periods from the auroral zones into the magnetosphere, extending the region dominated by terrestrial material, known as the fourth or plasma geosphere, at times out to the magnetopause.
Earth’s magnetosphere protects the ozone layer from the solar wind. The ozone layer protects the Earth (and life on it) from dangerous ultraviolet radiation.[9]
Two factors determine the structure and behavior of the magnetosphere: (1) The internal field of the Earth, and (2) The solar wind.
Physical reasons make it difficult for solar wind plasma with its embedded IMF to mix with terrestrial plasma whose magnetic field has a different source. The two plasmas end up separated by a boundary, the magnetopause, and the Earth's plasma is confined to a cavity inside the flowing solar wind, the magnetosphere. The isolation is not complete, thanks to secondary processes such as magnetic reconnection—otherwise it would be hard for the solar wind to transmit much energy to the magnetosphere—but it still determines the overall configuration.
An additional feature is a collision-free bow shock which forms in the solar wind ahead of Earth, typically at 13.5 RE on the sunward side. It forms because the solar velocity of the wind exceeds (typically 2–3 times) that of Alfvén waves, a family of characteristic waves with which disturbances propagate in a magnetized fluid. In the region behind the shock ("magnetosheath") the velocity drops briefly to the Alfvén velocity (and the temperature rises, absorbing lost kinetic energy), but the velocity soon rises back as plasma is dragged forward by the surrounding solar wind flow.
To understand the magnetosphere, one needs to visualize its magnetic field lines, that everywhere point in the direction of the magnetic field—e.g., diverging out near the magnetic north pole (or geographic southpole), and converging again around the magnetic south pole (or the geographic northpole), where they enter the Earth. They can be visualized like wires which tie the magnetosphere together—wires that also guide the motions of trapped particles, which slide along them like beads (though other motions may also occur).
When the first scientific satellites were launched in the first half of 1958—Explorers 1 and 3 by the US, Sputnik 3 by the Soviet Union—they observed an intense (and unexpected) radiation belt around Earth, held by its magnetic field. "My God, Space is Radioactive!" exclaimed one of Van Allen's colleagues, when the meaning of those observations was realized. That was the "inner radiation belt" of protons with energies in the range 10-100 MeV (megaelectronvolts), attributed later to "albedo neutron decay," a secondary effect of the interaction of cosmic radiation with the upper atmosphere. It is centered on field lines crossing the equator about 1.5 RE from the Earth's center.
Later a population of trapped ions and electrons was observed on field lines crossing the equator at 2.5–8 RE. The high-energy part of that population (about 1 MeV) became known as the "outer radiation belt", but its bulk is at lower energies (peak about 65 keV) and is identified as the ring current plasma.
The trapping of charged particles in a magnetic field can be quite stable. This is particularly true in the inner belt, because the build-up of trapped protons from albedo neutrons is quite slow, requiring years to reach observed intensities. In July 1962, the United States tested a thermonuclear weapon high over the South Pacific at around 400 km in the upper atmosphere, in this region, creating an artificial belt of high-energy electrons, and some of them were still around 4–5 years later (such tests are now banned by treaty).
The outer belt and ring current are less persistent, because charge-exchange collisions with atoms of the geocorona (see above) tends to remove their particles. That suggests the existence of an effective source mechanism, continually supplying this region with fresh plasma. It turns out that the magnetic barrier can be broken down by electric forces, as discussed in Magnetic Storms and Plasma Flows (MSPF). If plasma is pushed hard enough, it generates electric fields which allow it to move in response to the push, often (not always) deforming the magnetic field in the process.
A magnetic tail or magnetotail is formed by pressure from the solar wind on a planet's magnetosphere. The magnetotail can extend great distances away from its originating planet. Earth's magnetic tail extends at least 200 Earth radii in the anti-sunward direction well beyond the orbit of the Moon at about 60 Earth radii, while Jupiter's magnetic tail extends beyond the orbit of Saturn. On occasion Saturn is immersed inside the Jovian magnetosphere.
The extended magnetotail results from the energy stored in the planet's magnetic field. At times this energy is released and the magnetic field becomes temporarily more dipole-like. As it does so that stored energy goes to energize plasma trapped on the involved magnetic field lines. Some of that plasma is driven tailward and into the distant solar wind. The rest is injected into the inner magnetosphere where it results in the aurora and the ring current plasma population. The resulting energetic plasma and electric currents can disrupt spacecraft operations, communication and navigation.
Magnetic fields in the magnetosphere arise from the Earth's internal magnetic field as well as from electric currents that flow in the magnetospheric plasma: the plasma acts as an electromagnet. Magnetic fields from currents that circulate in the magnetospheric plasma extend the Earth's magnetism much further in space than would be predicted from the Earth's internal field alone. Such currents also determine the field's structure far from Earth, creating the regions described in the introduction above.
Unlike in a conventional resistive electric circuit, where currents are best thought of as arising as a response to an applied voltage, currents in the magnetosphere are better seen as caused by the structure and motion of the plasma in its associated magnetic field. For instance, electrons and positive ions trapped in the dipole-like field near the Earth tend to circulate around the magnetic axis of the dipole (the line connecting the magnetic poles) in a ring around the Earth, without gaining or losing energy (this is known as Guiding center motion). Viewed from above the magnetic north pole (geographic south), ions circulate clockwise, electrons counterclockwise, producing a net circulating clockwise current, known (from its shape) as the ring current. No voltage is needed—the current arises naturally from the motion of the ions and electrons in the magnetic field.
Any such current will modify the magnetic field. The ring current, for instance, strengthens the field on its outside, helping expand the size of the magnetosphere. At the same time, it weakens the magnetic field in its interior. In a magnetic storm, plasma is added to the ring current, making it temporarily stronger, and the field at Earth is observed to weaken by up to 1-2%.
The deformation of the magnetic field, and the flow of electric currents in it, are intimately linked, making it often hard to label one as cause and the other as effect. Frequently (as in the magnetopause and the magnetotail) it is intuitively more useful to regard the distribution and flow of plasma as the primary effect, producing the observed magnetic structure, with the associated electric currents just one feature of those structures, more of a consistency requirement of the magnetic structure.
As noted, one exception (at least) exists, a case where voltages do drive currents. That happens with Birkeland currents, which flow from distant space into the near-polar ionosphere, continue at least some distance in the ionosphere, and then return to space. (Part of the current then detours and leaves Earth again along field lines on the morning side, flows across midnight as part of the ring current, then comes back to the ionosphere along field lines on the evening side and rejoins the pattern.) The full circuit of those currents, under various conditions, is still under debate.
Because the ionosphere is an ohmic conductor of sorts, such flow will heat it up. It will also create secondary Hall currents, and accelerate magnetospheric particles—electrons in the arcs of the polar aurora, and singly ionized oxygen ions (O+) which contribute to the ring current.
Regardless of whether they are viewed as sources or consequences of the magnetospheric field structure, electric currents flow in closed circuits. That makes them useful for classifying different parts of the magnetic field of the magnetosphere, each associated with a distinct type of circuit. In this way the field of the magnetosphere is often resolved into 5 distinct parts, as follows.
Earlier it was stated that, "if plasma is pushed hard enough, it generates electric fields which allow it to move in response to the push, often (not always) deforming the magnetic field in the process." Two examples of such "pushing" are particularly important in the magnetosphere. The THEMIS mission is a NASA program to study in detail the physical processes involved in substorms.
The more common one occurs when the north-south component Bz of the interplanetary magnetic field (IMF) is appreciable and points southward. In this state field lines of the magnetosphere are relatively strongly linked to the IMF, allowing energy and plasma to enter it at relatively high rates. This swells up the magnetotail and makes it unstable. Ultimately the tail's structure changes abruptly and violently, a process known as a magnetic substorm.
One possible scenario (the subject is still debated) is as follows. As the magnetotail swells, it creates a wider obstacle to the solar wind flow, causing its widening portion to be squeezed more by the solar wind. In the end, this squeezing breaks apart field lines in the plasma sheet ("magnetic reconnection"), and the distant part of the sheet, no longer attached to the Earth, is swept away as an independent magnetic structure ("plasmoid"). The near-Earth part snaps back earthwards, energizing its particles and producing Birkeland currents and bright auroras. As observed in the 1970s by the ATS satellites at 6.6 RE, when conditions are favorable that can happen up to several times a day.
Substorms generally do not substantially add to the ring current. That happens in magnetic storms, when following an eruption on the sun (a "coronal mass ejection" or a "solar flare"—details are still debated, see MSPF) a fast-moving plasma cloud hits the Earth. If the IMF has a southward component, this not only pushes the magnetopause boundary closer to Earth (at times to about half its usual distance), but it also produces an injection of plasma from the tail, much more vigorous than the one associated with substorms.
The plasma population of the ring current may now grow substantially, and a notable part of the addition consists of O+ oxygen ions extracted from the ionosphere as a by-product of the polar aurora. In addition, the ring current is driven earthward (which energizes its particles further), temporarily modifying the field around the Earth and thus shifting the aurora (and its current system) closer to the equator. The magnetic disturbance may decay within 1–3 days as many ions are removed by charge exchange, but the higher energies of the ring current can persist much longer.
Mars, with little or no magnetic field is thought to have lost much of its former oceans and atmosphere to space in part due to the direct impact of the solar wind. Venus with its thick atmosphere is thought to have lost most of its water to space in large part owing to solar wind ablation.[11]
Due to the size of Jupiter's magnetosphere there is a possibility of very weak and very brief seasonal head-tail interaction between Earth's and Jupiter's magnetospheres. The magnetospheres of the outer gas planets may weakly interact, although their magnetospheres are much smaller than Jupiter's.
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