Click to viewWhile many hurdle are keeping us stuck here on Earth , our solar organization ’s deadly radiotherapy is master among them . But scientist now imagine that a thumb - sized attractive feature could produce a military group playing area big enough to screen an entire spaceship .
The big fiery ball we call our Sun is constantly fritter away gamey - energy corpuscle out into the solar system , a solar wind that yields radiation some 1000 times more powerful than that of the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima . The Earth ’s magnetosphere , produced by our major planet ’s liquefied atomic number 26 substance , deflects the solar wind instrument from our tilt and protects our bodies from that radiation .
scientist once thought a prohibitively huge magnet would be necessary to produce a similar , starship - sized shield , but a British lab has find that a small attractive feature is sufficient to make a magnetic field of view powerful enough to obviate a meaning amount of the charged particle . The phenomenon occurs because of a unique reaction between the solar fart and the attraction :
Because the solar wind is a plasma made up of charged particles , it too carries a magnetic field . When the solar wind ’s field meets the rocks ’ mini - magnetosphere , the two fields clash , exerting a force on each other . Something has to give . Because the solar flatus ’s field is created by free - moving particles , it is the one that yields , altering its orientation to minimise conflict with the miniskirt - magnetosphere ’s field of battle .
Some parts of the solar wind transmutation more easily than others . The positively charge protons have almost 2000 prison term the mass of the negatively charged electrons , so the latter are much more easily avoid . The electrons outride at the surface of the magnetized bubble , while the positive guardianship riddle further in .
This breakup of positive and electronegative charges generates intense electric field up to a million times warm than the magnetic field that created them . Subsequent solar wind particle hit these galvanising fields and are powerfully deflected . The result is a shielding issue far more hefty than the charismatic field alone might be expect to provide .
Skeptics worry that the eminent - energy particles found in outer space would blast through such a carapace , but the Rutherford Appleton Lab , which made the discovery , is already in secret talks with NASA to specify the implication of their breakthrough . For more force field fodder , check out thefull articleat New Scientist . [ New Scientist ]
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