The Earth's magnetosphere was discovered in 1958 by Explorer 1 during the research performed for the International Geophysical Year. Before this, scientists knew that electric currents existed in space, because solar eruptions sometimes led to "magnetic storm" disturbances. No one knew, however, where those currents were and why, or that the solar wind existed. In August and September of 1958, Project Argus was performed to test a theory about the formation of radiation belts that may have tactical use in war.
In 1959 Thomas Gold proposed the name "magnetosphere", when he wrote:
- "The region above the ionosphere in which the magnetic field of the earth has a dominant control over the motions of gas and fast charged particles is known to extend out to a distance of the order of 10 earth radii; it may appropriately be called the magnetosphere [Gold, Journal of Geophysical Research, volume 64, page 1219, 1959].
The magnetosphere of Earth is a region in space whose shape is determined by the extent of Earth's internal magnetic field, the solar wind plasma, and the interplanetary magnetic field (IMF). In the magnetosphere, a mix of free ions and electrons from both the solar wind and the Earth's ionosphere is confined by magnetic and electric forces that are much stronger than gravity and collisions. In spite of its name, the magnetosphere is distinctly non-spherical. On the side facing the Sun, the distance to its boundary (which varies with solar wind intensity) is about 70,000 km (10-12 Earth radii or RE, where 1 RE=6371 km; unless otherwise noted, all distances here are from the Earth's center). The boundary of the magnetosphere ("magnetopause") is roughly bullet shaped, about 15 RE abreast of Earth and on the night side (in the "magnetotail" or "geotail") approaching a cylinder with a radius 20-25 RE. The tail region stretches well past 200 RE, and the way it ends is not well-known.
The outer neutral gas envelope of Earth, or geocorona, consists mostly of the lightest atoms, hydrogen and helium, and continues beyond 4-5 RE, with diminishing density. The hot plasma ions of the magnetosphere acquire electrons during collisions with these atoms and create an escaping "glow" of fast atoms that have been used to image the hot plasma clouds by the IMAGE mission. The upward extension of the ionosphere, known as the plasmasphere, also extends beyond 4-5 RE with diminishing density, beyond which it becomes a flow of light ions called the polar wind that escapes out of the magnetosphere into the solar wind. Energy deposited in the ionosphere by auroras strongly heats the heavier atmospheric components such as oxygen and molecules of oxygen and nitrogen, which would not otherwise escape from Earth's gravity. Owing to this highly variable heating, however, a heavy atmospheric or ionospheric outflow of plasma flows during disturbed periods from the auroral zones into the magnetosphere, extending the region dominated by terrestrial material, known as the fourth or plasma geosphere, at times out to the magnetopause.
Two factors determine the structure and behavior of the magnetosphere: (1) The internal field of the Earth, and (2) The solar wind.
- The internal field of the Earth (its "main field") appears to be generated in the Earth's core by a dynamo process, associated with the circulation of liquid metal in the core, driven by internal heat sources. Its major part resembles the field of a bar magnet ("dipole field") inclined by about 10° to the rotation axis of Earth, but more complex parts ("higher harmonics") also exist, as first shown by Carl Friedrich Gauss. The dipole field has an intensity of about 30,000-60,000 nanoteslas (nT) at the Earth's surface, and its intensity diminishes like the inverse of the cube of the distance, i.e. at a distance of R Earth radii it only amounts to 1/R³ of the surface field in the same direction. Higher harmonics diminish faster, like higher powers of 1/R, making the dipole field the only important internal source in most of the magnetosphere.
- The solar wind is a fast outflow of hot plasma from the sun in all directions. Above the sun's equator it typically attains 400 km/s; above the sun's poles, up to twice as much. The flow is powered by the million-degree temperature of the sun's corona, for which no generally accepted explanation exists as yet. Its composition resembles that of the Sun—about 95% of the ions are protons, about 4% helium nuclei, with 1% of heavier matter (C, N, O, Ne, Si, Mg... up to Fe) and enough electrons to keep charge neutrality. At Earth's orbit its typical density is 6 ions/cm3 (variable, as is the velocity), and it contains a variable interplanetary magnetic field (IMF) of (typically) 2–5 nT. The IMF is produced by stretched-out magnetic field lines originating on the Sun, a process described in the article Geomagnetic storm.
Physical reasons make it difficult for solar wind plasma with its embedded IMF to mix with terrestrial plasma whose magnetic field has a different source. The two plasmas end up separated by a boundary, the magnetopause, and the Earth's plasma is confined to a cavity inside the flowing solar wind, the magnetosphere. The isolation is not complete, thanks to secondary processes such as magnetic reconnection —otherwise it would be hard for the solar wind to transmit much energy to the magnetosphere—but it still determines the overall configuration.
An additional feature is a collision-free bow shock which forms in the solar wind ahead of Earth, typically at 13.5 RE on the sunward side. It forms because the solar velocity of the wind exceeds (typically 2–3 times) that of Alfvén waves, a family of characteristic waves with which disturbances propagate in a magnetized fluid. In the region behind the shock ("magnetosheath") the velocity drops briefly to the Alfvén velocity (and the temperature rises, absorbing lost kinetic energy), but the velocity soon rises back as plasma is dragged forward by the surrounding solar wind flow.
To understand the magnetosphere, one needs to visualize its magnetic field lines, that everywhere point in the direction of the magnetic field—e.g., diverging out near the magnetic north pole (or geographic southpole), and converging again around the magnetic south pole (or the geographic northpole), where they enter the Earth. They can be visualized like wires which tie the magnetosphere together—wires that also guide the motions of trapped particles, which slide along them like beads (though other motions may also occur).
