REAL LIFE NEWS: PLANETARY SHIELDS UP!
by Hazed
Continuing my trawl through back issues of New Scientist, one of the March issues reports that when the Earth is hit by a solar storm it protects itself by bringing up a plasma shield.
The planet is surrounded by the magnetosphere – a bubble of magnetism which protects us from the stream of high-energy particles that flow from the sun. But sometimes, the magnetic field lines on the sun can link up to the magnetosphere and open up cracks in it. The resulting geomagnetic storms cause major problems with power grids and nav systems. (On the plus side, they also lead to spectacular aurora displays.)
Now satellites and ground-based detectors have seen a tendril of plasma unfurl to form a reservoir around the planet and create a protective buffer against these storms – or at least some of them. Not all of the solar storms generate a plasma plume, and scientists say that more observations are vital to understand when they are likely to form.
