Earth’s Magnetic Shield Vibrates Like A Drum When Hit By Impulses

MessageToEagle.com – The Earth’s magnetic shield booms like a drum when it is hit by strong impulses, according to new research from Queen Mary University of London.

As an impulse strikes the outer boundary of the shield, known as the magnetopause, ripples travel along its surface which then get reflected back when they approach the magnetic poles.

The interference of the original and reflected waves leads to a standing wave pattern, in which specific points appear to be standing still while others vibrate back and forth. A drum resonates like this when struck in exactly the same way.

Movements of the magnetopause are important.

It helps to predict space weather and all phenomena from space that can seriously damage technology like power grids, GPS and even passenger airlines.

“There had been speculation that these drum-like vibrations might not occur at all, given the lack of evidence over the 45 years since they were proposed,” Dr Martin Archer, space physicist at Queen Mary University of London, and lead author of the paper, said in a press release.

“Another possibility was that they are just very hard to definitively detect.

“Earth’s magnetic shield is continuously buffeted with turbulence so we thought that clear evidence for the proposed booming vibrations might require a single sharp hit from an impulse. You would also need lots of satellites in just the right places during this event so that other known sounds or resonances could be ruled out. The event in the paper ticked all those quite strict boxes and at last we’ve shown the boundary’s natural response.”

The researchers used observations from five NASA THEMIS satellites that were able to detect the boundary’s oscillations and the resulting sounds within the Earth’s magnetic shield.

Many impulses which can impact our magnetic shield originate from the solar wind, charged particles in the form of plasma that continually blow off the Sun, or are a result of the complicated interaction of the solar wind with Earth’s magnetic field, as was technically the case for this event.

Other planets like Mercury, Jupiter and Saturn also have similar magnetic shields and so the same drum-like vibrations may be possible elsewhere.

Paper

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