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(32)   Free Energy from the Earth's Magnetic Field?

Is there an equation to work out the effects of time while travelling at light speed? e.g If I were to travel at the speed of light to Proxima Centauri and it took me 4.23 years, how much time would pass by on Earth, etc.

Reply

Dear Paul

Relativity is not my field, but I believe time would stand still. Also, you could never go that fast, because an infinitely strong force would be required. But if you could, arranging to send back a radio signal when you arrived, the signal would come back 8.46 years after you have left, whereas to you the trip would be instantaneous.

I general, time in your frame passes faster as you approach the speed of light (I am sure you can find the formula), compared to the passage of time in a frame of reference not sharing your motion. Funny things may happen as you approach that limit. Someone once told me (you can check in Birmingham) that viewed from the outside, objects falling into a black hole seem to take forever to reach the "event horizon" beyond which they cannot be tracked. This, of course, assumes the information is conveyed by light, which gets drastically red-shifted as they approach that limit. However, in the frame of the falling object itself, only a finite time will have passed.

And as for going faster... you may already have heard the limerick:

            There was a young lady named Bright
            Who travelled much faster than light
            She set out one day
            In a relative way
            And returned the previous night.

Reply

    As the saying goes, no pain--no gain. To find out, you will have to do your homework, look up web sites and books. Briefly:

--     "To how much radiation you would you have to be exposed to be affected?" Depends on your definition of "affected." Some people say ANY radiation increases your long range cancer risk, but the effect of low doses is probably small. A dose of 500 REM has a 50% chance of killing you (treatment helps, but not a lot), a dose of 100 REM probably increases your long range cancer prospects on the same order as cigarette smoking. Cosmic rays give you a lifetime dosage of about 2 REM--rock radioactivity probably a comparable amount, depending on where you live.

--    What is REM? Stands for "roentgen equivalent man." The Roentgen started as a unit of x-ray dose measured by the number of electrons it tore from atoms, per unit mass ("man" means that every part of the body got that much radiation). Later people realized that some radiations had a greater effect on health than x-rays (for the same electron detachment) so radiation from other sources was converted to "equivalent" roentgens.

    Can you kindly help me to answer the following question: what is different between the following terms

1. Solar radiation and solar irradiation
2. Solar terrestrial radiation and solar extraterrestrial radiation
3. The word radiation and irradiance

    I am no authority on language, I can only tell you what I understand in the terms you sent. Let me start with the last.

    "Radiation" is used in several ways, often causing confusion. It means a phenomenon that spreads in space (along a radius from the source, if you will), and there exist some quite different phenomena that do so.

    The answer is probably "no." Yes, the solar wind will exert a pressure on objects in interplanetary space, but I believe the pressure of sunlight, small as it is, is greater. It is very rarefied--about 6 atoms per cubic centimeter at the Earth's orbit.

Dear David Stern,

    What is the furthest recorded distance of the earth's magnetic tail, and hypothetically speaking, what would you speculate the actual maximized distance to be, if there were no spacecraft present to obtain data during the times of lowest possible solar wind conditions? During what exact part of the sun's cycle would this most likely occur, to obtain this maximized distance/length? Also with the same thought in mind, how many times its normal size would the magnetosphere bloom outwards towards the sun? What ideal factors would have to be present (in the solar system) or together to create a condition that would contribute to a total maximization of the Earth's magnetotail and what would those speculated/theoretical distances be?

    I've had strong interest in magnetic fields and tails for over 25 years. I have some theories (for which I keep to myself) concerning planetary magnetotails, but unfortunately there is not enough data on the Earth's magnetotail available. I may be totally unaware of new data that is available. Alex

Reply

    Presumably, you have read all my web pages on these matters in "Exploration of the Earth's Magnetosphere" where such matters are discussed, and I will not repeat what was stated there.

    How far does the magnetotail extend? The answer depends on both physics and our use of language: at what point do we stop calling it "magnetotail" and starting to call it "wake"? Plasma sheet field lines at IMP 8 (35 RE or Earth radii) are still firmly anchored at Earth, at both ends. However around 50-80 RE, the plasma starts streaming tailward, picking up the solar wind flow. The field lines are still terrestrial, but it's hard to say what shapes them further out. We have observations of ISEE-3 and Geotail to about 220 RE, and once long ago a spacecraft crossed the Earth-Sun line at about 1000 RE and saw some disturbance.

    We know less about the planets. With Jupiter, for a long time, space probes avoided the tail because, in order to pick extra up velocity from the planet (see "Stargazers", sect. 35), they had to exit at 90 deg. to the sun- Jupiter line. More recently, "Galileo" entered orbit around Jupiter and has done some observation. There exist some tentative observations of a drop-out of the solar wind, seen by a spacecraft near the orbit of Saturn, which might have come from the wake of Jupiter.

    The lowest possible solar wind effects occured May 11-12 1999, when the solar wind density near Earth dropped to 0.2 ions/cc (6 ions/cc is typical) and the dayside boundary of closed field lines in the Sun's direction, typically at 10.5 RE, retreated to 20-25 RE.

(38)   Skywriting by Aurora

    Dear David P. Stern & Mauricio Peredo,

    I want to "apply/harness" the northern lights phenomenon and turn the night sky into a giant TV screen.

    I see a satellite like device in geocentric orbit that has an electron collecting apparatus, perhaps similar to a solar panel, on the side facing the sun. These collected electrons would then be focused, and accelerated via a solar powered anode and then aimed/directed by utilizing and or manipulating the lines of magnetic force generated by the earth's core along with the magnetosphere.

    Once focused, accelerated, and directed, the electron beam could then be "shot" "Sky Illuminating Electron Gun", or SIEG at the earth's atmosphere, creating a recognizable/predetermined image by striking targeted nitrogen and oxygen atoms at various altitudes; thus providing the necessary primary colors along with a depth of field that would result in the creation of a three dimensional/holographic image(s) turning the night sky into a rainbow of choreographed light-ballerinas dancing across the heavens. Or perhaps a giant illuminated billboard for advertisement purposes. Do you too find it odd that one must deal with the devil to get to heaven, or in your case, funding for research?

    In your opinion, what would be the theoretical and practical obstacles one might face to pull this off and are these obstacles insurmountable, scientifically speaking..

    Thank you Gentlemen,

Reply

    Your proposal sounds interesting--at the very least. Still, I am greatly relieved to be able to say that it will not work, for several good reasons. Even if it did, I may add, the field line structure of the Earth's magnetic field is such that the only people able to watch your display would be inhabitants of Alaska and northern Scandinavia, Russia and Canada--not the audience to make such a project pay for itself commercially!

    In addition, however, there exist technical obstacles, listed here from the minor to the major:

1. If an electron beam from synchronous orbit is to reach the atmosphere, it must be very narrowly focused along the direction of the magnetic field. Any electrons moving at an angle to the magnetic field direction, larger than some very small minimum, will bounce back before reaching Earth. They may hit the emitting satellite, or anyway form a belt of trapped electrons which will hit it sooner or later. It would be hard to prevent the beam from scattering while in transit. So many negative electrons, repelling each other--things may get unstable. They probably do in the natural aurora, which is why auroral beams tend to move across the sky.

2. An electron beam from one source will only hit one spot. It is hard to paint pictures with it.

3. The main auroral emissions--responsible for the green and red aurora--do not lend themselves to rapid changes. They are produced by atoms of oxygen in a (relatively) long-lived excited state, and are emitted at delays of the order of one second. The effect is as if you were drawing a TV picture with a long-persistence phosphor, whose glow persisted about one second. Auroras viewed through optical filters that select other emissions can see much faster changes, but for the unaided human eye the oxygen emissions cannot be removed.

4. The energy required to create an artificial aurora can be quite large: after all, you want to create large-scale illumination, visible to an eye 100 kilometers below it! Artificial auroras have been created in the past by accelerators aboard rockets (mainly to trace magnetic field lines). The patches they produced, if at all seen, were faint. Nuclear bombs have created bright auroras, but we don't want to do that--do we?

    If is possible to see ion's pass through a cloud chamber, and we know they are solid particles that contain energy, why can we not develop a way to capture that energy? Truly using the power of the sun to generate electricity.

    I have an idea! If we were able to channel ions within a magnetic field with some kind of collector would this not generate electricity? Possibly developing a type of electrical absorbing gel, that when the ions pass through, collects this energy and transmits it out.

    I apologize if I do not put this idea out clearly, for I am not a scientist and only see this idea in the abstract.

Reply

    Several reasons why this will not work:

1. The sun does not emit enough energetic particles to deliver much energy, even using an absorber with a fairly large area.

2. The Sun emits both positive ions and negative electrons. To extract the energy of ions (which have most of it) you must screen out the electrons, an added complication.

3. Energetic particles from the sun are stopped a long way from Earth. Even if one did capture their energy far in space, it is not clear how it might be transmitted to Earth.

    Dear Mr.. Stern,

    I was involved with the Virginia Governor's School of Math, Science, and Technology this past summer, in a class on Space Physics. I am using my knowledge in this course to conduct a research project/ experimentation on Geomagnetic storms and their effect on short radio wave transmissions. I was planning on using an old radio (one my grandfather used to do his HAM radio sessions) and monitoring a singular radio station and observing the relative clarity or disturbances during each observation. I would then log onto the internet and check the levels of geomagnetic storms at www.spaceweather.com. I would then compare my observations with the geomagnetic activity and make a correlation between the two. (higher activity causes more disturbance)

    However, after reading your email, I see that solar disturbances affect radio wave transmissions more so than Geomagnetic storms. I was just wondering if you could guide me in refining my procedure so I can obtain better results. As it is now, I am unsure my project will yield valid results. Any ideas on your part would be greatly appreciated. Would it be more effective for me to change my project to measure the affect of solar disturbances (solar flares, coronal holes, CMEs) on short radio wave transmission, rather than geomagnetic storms? How can I compare and correlate the two variables if I do change?

    Thank you for bearing with me. I have still have much to learn in the realm of Solar Physics. Your help is awesome.

Reply

    This is YOUR project, so I won't do your homework for you--except refer you to a few web sites which may answer many of your questions:

    http://www.ips.gov.au/papers/richard/hfreport/webrep.htm

    http://www.sel.noaa.gov/radio/

    http://www.hamradio-online.com/propagation.html

    You will also find a lot about space physics on my other web sites, home page (and index page) http://www.phy6.org/stargaze/Sintro.htm

Would you please explain how the Van Allen Belt affected the first manned space flights. How were they protected?

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    Dear Belinda

    All manned flights (except those of Apollo) have stayed below the radiation belt: the Space Shuttle, for instance, orbits at about 215 miles. The atmosphere is very rarefied there, and radiation belt particles descending to that level may well come back without encountering anything. However, such particles have thousands of Earthward excursions each day, so the only ones which are likely to survive long are those that are always confined to higher levels.

    A more subtle effect is also at work. The equations governing the motion of trapped particle indicate that each has a characteristic value of magnetic intensity, below which is cannot penetrate. Suppose a particle is reflected by the intensity existing at 215 miles. As it happens, the Earth's magnetic field--its region of magnetic forces--has some irregularities, so in some regions that intensity is only reached at 100 miles. Now and then the particle's orbit will happen to descend in that region, where it penetrates to much deeper (and denser) layers of the atmosphere, and may be quickly lost, even if elsewhere it stays at safe heights. One such notorious region exists above the southern Atlantic Ocean.

    So the radiation belt does not reach the levels where Mercury, Gemini, Soyuz and Mir used to orbit and where the Shuttle and Space Station do so now. The early Russian Sputniks failed to discover the radiation belt because they too stayed in such low orbits and Explorers 1 and 3 only detected it because they were rather poorly controlled and rose above 1500 miles.

    My question, then, is: will a magnetic field of sufficient strength repel non-charged particles or would they have to have to be electrons or ions with a charge to be affected? Could a magnetic field deflect say, a hydrogen atom or a helium atom that has the proper amount of electrons to be neutrally charged? And, while we're at it, would the field have to be stronger to deflect bigger particles, say something the size of a grain of sand or a pebble?

    thank you very much,

Reply

    I am afraid the answer is no--magnetic fields have no effect on uncharged dust or pebbles. Have you ever had an occasion to be examined on an MRI machine? (MRI is Magnetic Resonance Imaging--it used to be called Nuclear Magnetic Resonance, but the word "nuclear" frightened too many people, who did not realize the nuclei in question were stable well-behaved nuclei of hydrogen). You lie still on a pallet which rolls your body until the part being imaged is inside a big doughnut shaped magnet. That magnet is so strong that the attendant will collect from you anything that has iron in it--key chains etc.--lest it is snatched from you and flung towards the machine. Yet when you lie inside it (it makes an infernal racket, by the way) you cannot sense any special magnetic forces on your uncharged body.

    Even for shielding yourself from fast ions and electrons in space, it would be hard to create a magnetic field strong enough and extensive enough. For a spaceship moving at c/3, though, shielding is not that hard--all the stuff coming at it moves essentially in one direction, so one only has to provide some armor on the front side. A very, very thick armor, maybe, but only right in front, no need to cover space all around.

    What matters most is "where," or as they say in the real estate business--location, location, location. Your best bet is Fairbanks, Alaska; you may also see northern lights in Winnipeg, Canada, or even International Falls, Minnesota, but they could only be near the northern horizon.

    Scientists call the phenomenon the "polar aurora." Earlier it was named "aurora borealis" meaning "northern dawn" in Latin, since in Europe it was mostly seen as a glow near the northern horizon. However, it also occurs near the south pole, so "polar aurora" is now preferred. Aurora is caused by electrons energized in the Earth's magnetic environment, the magnetosphere, and guided earthward along magnetic field lines (lines of force) along which they slide, a bit like beads sliding along a wire. They move at about 1/5 the speed of light and in many ways they resemble electrons beamed at the screen inside the picture tube of a TV receiver. Where picture-tube electrons produce light when they hit the screen, auroral electrons do so when they hit the fringes of the atmosphere, about 100 kilometers (60 miles) up.

    The field lines on which this happens are the ones coming down along a circle centered near the magnetic pole ("auroral circle" or "auroral oval"), and that is where the accelerated electrons end up. The circle can expand and contract, but it usually passes near Fairbanks.

    When? Don't expect to see aurora in the Alaskan tourist season, during the summer, it just does not get dark enough. Just as near-polar winter nights are long and dark, summer days are long and bright, and even after the Sun sets, twilight persists. September has some darkness, October much more--March and April are also OK, and so is winter, if you do not mind the cold. When? The brightest auroras come from the night side of the magnetosphere, so you should see them around midnight, or later because of Alaska's time zone. If you stay in a hotel, ask the desk clerk to wake you when a good display occurs.

    What about the 11-year sunspot cycle? Occasionally, but especially in years of peak sunspot activity, the Sun sends out blobs of hot gas, which hit the magnetosphere and agitate it, causing "magnetic storms." At such times the "auroral circle" expands and reaches the lower 48 states of the US and mid-latitude Europe. The agitation also produces fine auroras, as happened on 5 November 2001, when the US was favorably located. However, since Fairbanks is located near the normal auroral circle, auroras are observed there throughout the 11-year cycle. The main factor is the slanting of interplanetary magnetic field lines (which come from the Sun)--southward slant, auroras likely, northward slant, not so much. That slant varies randomly, though satellites monitor it, and you can read their latest reports on the web.

    Kind of hard to work on a house when the foundation is shaky, no? Your teachers and your texts should really answer those questions, but let me try, anyway.

    How do you measure time? A good "clock" is the rotation of the Earth, and in early times this was checked by the position of the Sun. When the Sun was highest above the horizon--and exactly to the south--the time was noon, and the interval from one noon to the next was a DAY, or more precisely a solar day.

    Universal Time is essentially the time in Greenwich, England, and serves as reference time for astronomical events (e.g. the observed onset of the 1987 supernova). It's sort of a "world time" not tied to any local clock. There exists a small correction, but if the above is good enough for you, you may skip the next 2 paragraphs.
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[    As it happens, the Sun's position among the stars also varies, and that motion contributes to the length of the day (about 4 minutes--see web site). Unfortunately, that contribution varies slightly throughout the year, because the Earth's uneven motion around the Sun, etc., so the "noon-to-noon" day varies slightly in length. Astronomers use instead a MEAN SOLAR DAY averaged over the year, which is a good gauge of the Earth's rotation.

    But measuring time in mean solar days is not all. One must also decide when each day begins! Astronomers have agreed that each mean day begins with (mean) midnight at the Royal Astronomical Observatory in Greenwich, England, and time defined that way is known as UNIVERSAL TIME (UT). "Greenwich Mean Time" (GMT) is similar, but is counted from noon.]

    So, UNIVERSAL TIME essentially measures time, using the rotation of the Earth around its axis. LOCAL TIME (LT), on the other hand, measures not time but position relative to the Sun.

    Suppose you cover the Earth with a network of lines of latitude and longitude (see on the web http://www.phy6.org/stargaze/Slatlong.htm ) The at UT=0 it is midnight in Greenwich, 11 am in Russia, 6 pm in the Eastern US, and so forth; these are the LOCAL TIMES at these locations. Three hours later you add 3 hours to all these local times--and so forth, for other locations and other times. The local time at each location depends on the difference between its longitude ("meridian") and the longitude where it happens to be midnight. (You need not use time zones, but take the exact difference in longitude, for exact local time.) Your local time is 12 noon if your location faces the Sun, LT=24 (midnight) if it faces away from the Sun, and other values of LT for other relative positions of the Sun.

    One can similarly cover the Earth with lines of MAGNETIC LATITUDE and LONGITUDE, the latter converging not at the geographic poles but at the magnetic poles. As the globe rotates, we can say as before that all points on the same magnetic longitude have a certain MAGNETIC LOCAL TIME (MLT). We have MLT=12 (noon) on the magnetic meridian (magnetic line of longitude) facing the Sun, and MLT=0 (or 24) on the meridian facing the opposite direction, and so on,. It is completely similar to ordinary LT.

    Why is MLT important? Because the shape of the magnetic environment of the Earth--the magnetosphere--is determined by the solar wind, which "blows" almost exactly from the sun. So at MLT=12 a point faces in the"upwind" direction, and at MLT=24 in the "downwind" direction. Phenomena related to the action of the solar wind on the Earth's magnetic field, such as the polar aurora or daily magnetic variations, depend very much on MLT.

    Hope this makes it clear.

Reply

I don't think so, we have no evidence for it. For at least two reasons, we do not expect any, either.

    First, our atmosphere is electrically neutral and does not conduct electricity (below 50 km, anyway--and weather stays below 10-20 km). Substances of this kind (except maybe permanent magnet, a very special case) do not react to magnetic fields. When a doctor puts your body inside the strong magnet of an MRI machine, you feel no difference, except maybe for the loud noise that machine makes.

    Second, weather gets its energy from heat deposited by sunlight on the surface of Earth. The energy of the magnetosphere, on the other hand, comes from the solar wind. A beam of the solar wind as wide as the magnetosphere carries only about 1/3500 as much energy as sunlight hitting Earth, and only about 1% of that is given to the magnetosphere. Of that, only a fraction reaches the upper atmosphere. It seems too little to make a difference, and it is not clear how it might move further down.

    Practically all that energy, by the way, is channeled to the auroral zone, near the poles. As was said--no clear correlation has been observed, there or elsewhere. You may not get a scientist to say "absolutely no," but "very unlikely" may be just as good.