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Crack in Earth's magnetic field
(Agencies)
Updated: 2008-12-18 07:47

Recent satellite observations have revealed the largest breach yet seen in the magnetic field that protects Earth from most of the sun's violent blasts, researchers reported on Tuesday.

The discovery was made last summer by a fleet of five small NASA satellites, Themis.

Scientists have long known that the Earth's magnetic field, which guards against severe space weather, is similar to a drafty old house that sometimes lets in violent eruptions of charged particles from the sun. Such a breach can cause brilliant auroras or disrupt satellite and ground communications.

Observations from Themis show the Earth's magnetic field occasionally develops two cracks, allowing solar wind - a stream of charged particles spewing from the sun at 1.6 million kph - to penetrate the Earth's upper atmosphere.

Last summer, Themis calculated a layer of solar particles to be at least 6,400 km thick in the outermost part of the Earth's magnetosphere, the largest tear of the protective shield found so far.

"It was growing rather fast," Themis scientist Marit Oieroset of the University of California, Berkeley told an American Geophysical Union meeting. Such breaches are temporary, and the one observed last year lasted about an hour, Oieroset said.

Solar flares are a potential danger to astronauts in orbit but generally are not a risk to people on the Earth's surface.

Scientists initially believed the greatest solar breach occured when the Earth's and sun's magnetic fields are pointed in opposite directions. But data from Themis found the opposite to be true; 20 times more solar wind passed into the Earth's protective shield when the magnetic fields were aligned, Oieroset said.

The results could have bearing on how scientists predict the severity of solar storms, airline and military communications and satellite signals.