What does the plasmasphere do?
What does the plasmasphere do?
The plasmasphere is a donut-shaped region inside the Earth’s magnetosphere. It is basically an extension of the ionosphere, or the topmost part of the Earth’s atmosphere. The magnetic field lines of the Earth capture plasma that flows up from the ionosphere, so that there is a plasma build-up.
Where is the plasmasphere?
The plasmasphere, or inner magnetosphere, is a region of the Earth’s magnetosphere consisting of low-energy (cool) plasma. It is located above the ionosphere. The outer boundary of the plasmasphere is known as the plasmapause, which is defined by an order of magnitude drop in plasma density.
What is the Earth’s plasma?
The Earth’s plasmasphere is an inner part of the magneteosphere. It is located just outside the upper ionosphere located in Earth’s atmosphere. It is a region of dense, cold plasma that surrounds the Earth. Although plasma is found throughout the magnetosphere, the plasmasphere usually contains the coldest plasma.
How big is the plasmasphere?
plasmapause, portion of the magnetosphere that rotates with the Earth at about four Earth radii (approximately 26,000 km, or 16,000 miles); beyond this region there is a rapid decrease in electron concentrations, and their circulation pattern is quite different.
What does the magnetotail do?
Planets having active magnetospheres, like the Earth, are capable of mitigating or blocking the effects of solar radiation or cosmic radiation, that also protects all living organisms from potentially detrimental and dangerous consequences.
Can plasma exist on Earth?
Plasma can exist briefly in the lowest regions of the Earth’s atmosphere. In a lightning stroke an oxygen-nitrogen plasma is heated at approximately 20,000 K with an ionization of about 20 percent, similar to that of a laboratory arc.
What is the primary source of plasma in the plasmasphere?
The plasmasphere (Darrouzet et al. 2009) is a cold dense plasma in the dipolar region of the magnetosphere. The plasmasphere is of ionospheric origin, caused by sunlit-driven outflow of cold ions from the dayside ionosphere. Near the Earth the plasmasphere corotates with the Earth.
Is Earth a magnet?
In a sense, yes. The crust of the Earth has some permanent magnetization, and the Earth’s core generates its own magnetic field, sustaining the main part of the field we measure at the surface. So we could say that the Earth is, therefore, a “magnet.”
How long does it take the plasmasphere to rotate?
Although times vary, the plasmasphere takes 27 hours on average to do a full rotation. It takes Earth 24 hours to do a full rotation. So, the Earth actually spins faster than the plasmasphere on average.
What is the Earth’s plasmasphere?
The Earth’s plasmasphere is an inner part of the magneteosphere. It is located just outside the upper ionosphere located in Earth’s atmosphere. It is a region of dense, cold plasma that surrounds the Earth. Although plasma is found throughout the magnetosphere, the plasmasphere usually contains the coldest plasma.
How does plasma move through the atmosphere?
The atmospheric gas density becomes low enough to support the conditions for a plasma around earth at about 90 kilometers above Earth’s surface. The electrons in plasma gain more energy, and they are very low in mass . They move along Earth’s magnetic field lines and their increased energy is enough to escape Earth’s gravity.
What happens to the plasmasphere as it shrinks?
As it shrinks with increasing activity, some of the plasmasphere is drawn away from its main body (plasmaspheric erosion) in the sunward direction toward the boundary in space between that region dominated by Earth’s magnetic field and the much larger region dominated by the Sun’s magnetic field.
