Tim Froehlig & Bevan Gerber-Siff Thursday, July 22, 2004 The Earth’s Magnetosphere & Solar Wind.

Tim Froehlig & Bevan Gerber-Siff Thursday, July 22, 2004

The Earth’s Magnetosphere & Solar Wind

• Solar wind• Magnetosphere• Interactions between the 2

phenomena• Dismal experiment failure• Aurora borealis

What We’re Gonna Say:

What are they?}

Solar Wind

• The Sun is constantly spraying “stuff”• Speed varies (300-800 km/s)• Particle Density (amount of stuff) also varies

SoHO• Solar and Heliospheric Observatory• Joint ESA/NASA project• Launched Dec 2, 1995• Lies 1.5 million km from Earth• A bunch of instruments pointed at

the Sun

Magnetosphere

• The Earth is a large magnet• Has a magnetosphere (field

lines)• Shields us from “stuff”

Our Dismal Failure

• Tried to make instrument to monitor magnetosphere

• In Tim’s dorm room on 4th floor• Excessive vibration pollution

In Retrospect…

• Could’ve isolated instruments more• More time to take data• More distance between dot and magnet• Farther from potential electromagnetic fields

HAARP and Other Magnetometers

• Used data from a series of magnetometers in Alaska and Northern Canada

• More accurate than we possibly could’ve been• Many crippling conditions found in UCSC are

not present

What Does This Have to do With Anything?!

• Solar wind constantly warps Earth’s magnetosphere

• Causes field line directions and field strength to vary

• Variation is measurable• Solar wind takes ~3 days to reach Earth

Data Plots!

July 15, 2004

Data Plots!July 15, 2004

Aurora Borealis

• Occurs near poles (weak field lines)• Caused by solar wind hitting upper atmosphere• Light up sky• Without magnetosphere entire sky on sunny side

would light up (but we’d all die)

“The Day the Solar Wind Disappeared”

• May 10-12, 1999• Solar Wind stopped?• 98% less dense than normal• ½ normal speed• Coronal electrons reached Earth• Über-Aurora Borealis (x-ray spectrum)• Magnetosphere expanded to 5x normal

Have You Been Paying Attention?

• “From the ashes of disaster…” Failed experiment lead to interesting research

• Lasers are FUN!• What we said:

-Magnetosphere-Solar Wind-Correlation-Our Experiment sucked-Aurora Borealis is COOL