Scenario: Earth's Magnetosphere Runs Down

[arkain101]

When renting a movie these days you come across alot of apocolyptic type movies. Earthquakes, volcanoes, meteors, tidal waves, and large storms are commanly found in these movies.

 

I was reading about mars and the long past event of it losing its magnetosphere:

Evidence indicates that in Mars' distant past, it may have had a strong enough magnetosphere to deflect the solar wind coming from the Sun. However, about 4 billion years ago Mars' planetary dynamo ceased, leaving only remnants of the planetary magnetic field to be frozen into magnetically susceptible minerals. Over time, most of this material was reprocessed through various geological events leaving only sections of the ancient southern highlands with remnant magnetic fields. Because of this, the solar wind interacts directly with the Martian ionosphere and thus the Martian atmosphere has been slowly stripped off into space, although the exact amount lost remains uncertain. Both Mars Global Surveyor and Mars Express have detected ionised atmospheric particles trailing off into space behind Mars

 

 

It sounds like an ugly scenario. That is, when you observe comets burning up from the sun as they make their way through the observable solar system.

 

The Movie THE CORE goes over this concept in a hollywood kind of way, which is far from, ahem, reality. :D

 

The question is, if earth's magnetosphere either temporarly fell, due to a flip, or a permanent collapse; what kind of consequences would we be facing here on earth, in a scientists point of view ?

 

Would earth turn into a large comet? The sky burning up like fire, the sound of hissing burning air? Electric storms?

[ronthepon]

If the earth's magnetosphere did dissapear, we'd be horribly vulnerable to solar winds.

 

Yeah... I would expect that the 'loosely held' stuff over the earth, such as water would be blown off... chilling scenario...

[CraigD]

The Movie THE CORE goes over this concept in a hollywood kind of way, which is far from, ahem, reality. :naughty:

For all its wackiness, I really enjoyed “The Core”, and though that it contained some wonderful, though far-fetched, scientific speculation (the mantle bubbles resembling giant geodes were among my favorite :)). This sort of movie serves, I think, to stir enthusiasm for science, expecially in children, earning my thumbs-up. :D

The question is, if earth's magnetosphere either temporarly fell, due to a flip, or a permanent collapse; what kind of consequences would we be facing here on earth, in a scientists point of view ?

 

Would earth turn into a large comet? The sky burning up like fire, the sound of hissing burning air? Electric storms?

Without an thorough review of literature or computer simulation, I’m guessing that a collapse of Earth’s magnetosphere wouldn’t be as spectacular as any of this.

 

One reason I believe this is that Venus, with 0.815 the mass of Earth, but very little magnetosphere, retains a thick atmosphere, despite being subject to almost 2 times the solar wind of Earth. What magnetosphere it has appears to be due exclusively to the interaction of its ionosphere and the solar wind. Though it's uncertain why, Venus appears to have little to no core-dynamo-produced magnetic field. A magnetic compass wouldn’t work on Venus.

 

Mars’s thin atmosphere appears to be more due to its much smaller mass (0.107 the mass of Earth) than to its lack of an internally dynamo.

 

Another reason is that Earth geological evidence suggests that it’s dynamo has undergone several “weak periods” corresponding to pole flips, but these periods have not been accompanied by dramatic mass extinctions.

 

None of this is to suggest that a magnetosphere collapse wouldn’t be a human catastrophy. Even retaining its thick atmosphere, a magnetically less shielded Earth would be much more subject to solar and cosmic radiation, which could devastate electrical power systems, communication, and other technologies. Ecospheric change, while far from extinction-level, could still be awful, while increased radiation could dramatically increase cancer and other radiation-related disease rates. How this would effect mankind socially is, IMHO, anyone’s guess, and outside of the scope of an Astronomy & Physics discussion.

[arkain101]

Interesting replies friends.

 

Hey, I figured I would ask right?

 

Alot of kooks are talking about the poles flipping soon. I do not take them seriously, but for whatever reasons, I was interested in what kind of cool catastrophy is in our unknown future. OOoOo.

[Janus]

When renting a movie these days you come across alot of apocolyptic type movies. Earthquakes, volcanoes, meteors, tidal waves, and large storms are commanly found in these movies.

 

I was reading about mars and the long past event of it losing its magnetosphere:

 

 

 

It sounds like an ugly scenario. That is, when you observe comets burning up from the sun as they make their way through the observable solar system.

 

The Movie THE CORE goes over this concept in a hollywood kind of way, which is far from, ahem, reality. :shrug:

 

The question is, if earth's magnetosphere either temporarly fell, due to a flip, or a permanent collapse; what kind of consequences would we be facing here on earth, in a scientists point of view ?

 

Would earth turn into a large comet? The sky burning up like fire, the sound of hissing burning air? Electric storms?

 

The solar wind at one AU has a density of about 7 protons per cm³ This is about 10 quadrillion times less dense than a standard atmosphere, and at least 1 million times less dense than the atmosphere at even the distance of low Earth orbit. IOW, it is an extreme high vacuum.

 

Comets "burn up" as they get closer to the Sun, simply due to the radiant heat from the Sun, (they are, after all, composed mainly of ice and frozen gasses.) All the solar wind does is push the resulting gasses away from the sun to form the tail, and considering that the tail of a comet is just a slightly less hard vacuum itself, this isn't too hard for it to do.