The article talks about which planet does not have an atmosphere, why an atmosphere is needed, how it arises, why some are deprived of it, and how it could be created artificially.

Start

Life on our planet would be impossible without an atmosphere. And the point is not only in the oxygen that we breathe, by the way, it contains only a little more than 20%, but also in the fact that it creates the pressure necessary for living beings and protects from solar radiation.

According to scientific definition, the atmosphere is the gaseous shell of the planet that rotates with it. To put it simply, a huge accumulation of gas is constantly hanging over us, but we won’t notice its weight just like the Earth’s gravity, because we were born in such conditions and are used to it. But not all celestial bodies are lucky enough to have it. So we will not take into account which planet, since it is still a satellite.

Mercury

The atmosphere of planets of this type consists mainly of hydrogen, and the processes in it are very violent. Consider the atmospheric vortex alone, which has been observed for more than three hundred years - that same red spot in the lower part of the planet.

Saturn

Like all gas giants, Saturn is composed primarily of hydrogen. The winds do not subside, lightning flashes and even rare auroras are observed.

Uranus and Neptune

Both planets are hidden thick layer clouds of hydrogen, methane and helium. Neptune, by the way, holds the record for the speed of winds on the surface - as much as 700 kilometers per hour!

Pluto

When recalling such a phenomenon as a planet without an atmosphere, it is difficult not to mention Pluto. It is, of course, far from Mercury: its gas shell is “only” 7 thousand times less dense than the earth’s. But still, this is the most distant and so far little-studied planet. Little is known about it either - only that it contains methane.

How to create an atmosphere for life

The thought of colonizing other planets has haunted scientists since the very beginning, and even more so about terraformation (creation in conditions without means of protection). All this is still at the level of hypotheses, but on Mars, for example, it is quite possible to create an atmosphere. This process is complex and multi-stage, but its main idea is the following: spray bacteria on the surface, which will produce even more carbon dioxide, the density of the gas shell will increase, and the temperature will rise. After this, the polar glaciers will begin to melt, and due to increased pressure, the water will not evaporate without a trace. And then the rains will come and the soil will become suitable for plants.

So we figured out which planet is practically devoid of an atmosphere.

4.6 billion years ago, condensations began to form in our Galaxy from clouds of stellar matter. As the gases became more dense and condensed, they heated up, radiating heat. With an increase in density and temperature, nuclear reactions, turning hydrogen into helium. Thus, there was a very powerful source energy - the Sun.

Simultaneously with the increase in temperature and volume of the Sun, as a result of the combination of fragments of interstellar dust in a plane perpendicular to the axis of rotation of the Star, planets and their satellites were created. Formation Solar System ended about 4 billion years ago.

On this moment The Solar System has eight planets. These are Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Nepton. Pluto - dwarf planet, the largest known Kuiper belt object (which is a large belt of fragments similar to the asteroid belt). After its discovery in 1930, it was considered the ninth planet. This changed in 2006 with the adoption of a formal definition of planet.

On the planet closest to the Sun, Mercury, it never rains. This is due to the fact that the planet’s atmosphere is so rarefied that it is simply impossible to detect. And where will the rain come from if the daytime temperature on the surface of the planet sometimes reaches 430º Celsius? Yeah, I wouldn't want to be there :)

But on Venus there is constant acid rain, since the clouds above this planet do not consist of life-giving water, but of deadly sulfuric acid. True, since the temperature on the surface of the third planet reaches 480º Celsius, drops of acid evaporate before they reach the planet. The sky above Venus is pierced by large and terrible lightning, but there is more light and roar from them than rain.

On Mars, according to scientists, a long time ago natural conditions were the same as on Earth. Billions of years ago, the atmosphere above the planet was much denser, and it is possible that heavy rainfall filled these rivers. But now there is a very thin atmosphere above the planet, and photographs transmitted by reconnaissance satellites indicate that the surface of the planet resembles the deserts of the southwestern United States or the Dry Valleys in Antarctica. When winter hits parts of Mars, thin clouds containing carbon dioxide appear above the red planet and frost covers dead rocks. Early in the morning there are such thick fogs in the valleys that it seems as if it is about to rain, but such expectations are in vain.

By the way, the air temperature during the day on Mrsa is 20º Celsius. True, at night it can drop to - 140 :(

Jupiter is the largest of the planets and is a giant ball of gas! This ball consists almost entirely of helium and hydrogen, but it is possible that deep inside the planet there is a small hard core, shrouded in an ocean of liquid hydrogen. However, Jupiter is surrounded on all sides by colored bands of clouds. Some of these clouds even consist of water, but, as a rule, the vast majority of them are formed by frozen crystals of ammonia. From time to time, powerful hurricanes and storms fly over the planet, bringing with them snowfalls and rains of ammonia. This is where to hold the Magic Flower.

During a strong solar storm, the Earth loses about 100 tons of atmosphere.

Space Weather Facts

1. Solar flares can sometimes heat the solar surface to 80 million F, hotter than the core​​sunshine!
2. The fastest coronal mass ejection recorded was on August 4, 1972, and it traveled from the Sun to Earth in 14.6 hours - a speed of about 10 million kilometers per hour or 2,778 km/sec.
3. On April 8, 1947, the largest sunspot was recorded in modern history, With maximum size, exceeding 330 times the area of ​​the Earth.
4. The most powerful solar flare in the last 500 years occurred on September 2, 1859 and was discovered by two astronomers who were lucky enough to look at the sun at the right time!
5. Between May 10 and May 12, 1999, the pressure solar wind practically disappeared, as a result of which the Earth’s magnetosphere expanded in volume by more than 100 times!
6. Typical coronal mass ejections can be millions of kilometers in size, but the mass is equivalent to a small mountain!
7. Some sunspots are so cool that water vapor can form at a temperature of 1550 C.
8. The most powerful auroras can generate more than 1 trillion watts, which is comparable to an average earthquake.
9. On March 13, 1989, in Quebec (Canada), as a result of a major geomagnetic storm, a major power failure occurred, causing a power outage for 6 hours. Damage to the Canadian economy amounted to $6 billion
10. During intense solar flares, astronauts may see bright, flashing streaks of light from the impact of high-energy particles on the eyeballs.
11. Most big problem The astronauts' journey to Mars will overcome the effects of solar storms and radiation.
12. Space weather forecasting costs just $5 million a year, but saves more than $500 billion in annual revenue from the satellite and electrical industries.
13. During the last solar cycle, $2 billion worth of satellite technology was damaged or destroyed.
14. A repeat of the Carrington event, like the one in 1859, could cost $30 billion a day for the US power grid and up to $70 billion for the satellite industry.
15. On August 4, 1972, a solar flare was so strong that, according to some estimates, an astronaut would have received a lethal dose of radiation during flight.
16. During the Maunder Minimum (1645-1715), accompanied by the onset of the Small ice age , the 11-year sunspot cycle was not detected.
17. In one second, the sun converts 4 million tons of matter into clean energy.
18. The Sun's core is almost as dense as lead and has a temperature of 15 million degrees C.
19. During a strong solar storm, the Earth loses about 100 tons of atmosphere.
20. Rare earth magnetic toys can have a magnetic field 5 times stronger than the magnetic field of sunspots.

One of striking features Solar system - diversity of planetary atmospheres. Earth and Venus are similar in size and mass, but Venus's surface is 460°C hot under an ocean of carbon dioxide that presses down on the surface like a kilometer-long layer of water. Callisto and Titan are large satellites of Jupiter and Saturn, respectively; they are almost the same size, but Titan has an extensive nitrogen atmosphere, much larger than Earth's, and Callisto is virtually atmosphereless.

Where do such extremes come from? If we knew this, we could explain why the Earth is full of life, while other planets near it appear lifeless. By understanding how atmospheres evolve, we could determine which planets outside the solar system might be habitable.

The planet acquires gas cover in different ways. It can spew steam from its depths, it can capture volatile substances from comets and asteroids upon collision with them, or its gravity can attract gases from interplanetary space. In addition, planetary scientists come to the conclusion that the loss of gas plays as important a role as its acquisition. Even the earth's atmosphere, which looks unshakable, gradually flows into outer space. The rate of leakage is currently very small: about 3 kg of hydrogen and 50 g of helium (the two lightest gases) per second; but even such a trickle can become significant over geological period, and the rate of loss could once have been much higher. As Benjamin Franklin wrote, "A little leak can drown big ship"The current atmospheres of the planets terrestrial group and the satellites of the giant planets resemble the ruins of medieval castles - these are the remnants of former luxury, which became a victim of robbery and dilapidation. The atmospheres of even smaller bodies are like ruined forts - defenseless and easily vulnerable.

By recognizing the importance of atmospheric leakage, we are changing our understanding of the future of the solar system. For decades, scientists have tried to understand why Mars has such a thin atmosphere, but now we are surprised that it has any atmosphere at all. Is the difference between Titan and Callisto due to the fact that Callisto lost its atmosphere before air appeared on Titan? Was Titan's atmosphere once denser than it is today? How did Venus retain nitrogen and carbon dioxide but lose all water? Did a hydrogen leak contribute to the origin of life on Earth? Will our planet ever turn into a second Venus?

When it gets hot

If a rocket has reached escape velocity, then it is moving so fast that it is able to overcome the gravity of the planet. The same can be said of atoms and molecules, although they usually achieve escape velocity without having specific purpose. During thermal evaporation, gases become so hot that they cannot be contained. In non-thermal processes, atoms and molecules are ejected as a result chemical reactions or interactions of charged particles. Finally, when colliding with asteroids and comets, entire pieces of the atmosphere are torn off.

The most common process of these three is thermal evaporation. All bodies in the solar system are heating up sunlight. They get rid of this heat in two ways: by emitting infrared radiation and evaporation of matter. In long-lived objects, such as the Earth, the first process dominates, and, for example, in comets, the second process dominates. If the balance between heating and cooling is upset, even a large body the size of Earth can heat up quite quickly, and at the same time its atmosphere, which usually contains a small fraction of the mass of the planet, can evaporate quite quickly. Our solar system is filled with bodies devoid of air, apparently mainly due to thermal evaporation. The body becomes airless if solar heating exceeds a certain threshold depending on the gravitational force of the body.
Thermal evaporation occurs in two ways. The first is called Jeans evaporation in honor of the English astrophysicist James Jeans, who described this phenomenon at the beginning of the 20th century. In this case, the air from the upper layer of the atmosphere literally evaporates atom by atom, molecule by molecule. In lower layers, mutual collisions hold particles together, but above a level called the exobase (at Earth's 500 km above the surface), the air is so thin that gas particles almost never collide. Above the exobase, nothing can stop an atom or molecule that has sufficient speed to fly into space.

Hydrogen, as the lightest gas, overcomes the planet's gravity more easily than others. But first he must get to the exobase, and on Earth this is a long process. Molecules containing hydrogen usually do not rise above the lower atmosphere: water vapor (H2O) condenses and falls down as rain, and methane (CH4) oxidizes and turns into carbon dioxide (CO2). Some water and methane molecules reach the stratosphere and break down, releasing hydrogen, which slowly diffuses upward until it reaches the exobase. Some hydrogen escapes, as evidenced by ultraviolet images showing a halo of hydrogen atoms around our planet.

The temperature at the height of the Earth's exobase fluctuates around 1000 K, which corresponds to an average speed of hydrogen atoms of about 5 km/s. This less than the second escape velocity for the Earth at this altitude (10.8 km/s); but the velocities of the atoms around the mean are widely distributed, so some hydrogen atoms have a chance to overcome the planet's gravity. The leakage of particles from the high-speed “tail” in their velocity distribution explains from 10 to 40% of the Earth’s loss of hydrogen. The evaporation of Jeans partly explains the lack of an atmosphere on the Moon: gases emerging from under the surface of the Moon easily evaporate into space.

The second path of thermal evaporation is more effective. While during Jeans evaporation the gas escapes molecule by molecule, the heated gas can escape entirely. The upper layers of the atmosphere can absorb ultraviolet radiation from the Sun, heat up and, expanding, push air upward. As the air rises, it accelerates, overcomes the speed of sound and reaches escape velocity. This form of thermal evaporation is called hydrodynamic outflow, or planetary wind (by analogy with the solar wind - a stream of charged particles ejected by the Sun into space).

Basic provisions

Many of the gases that make up the atmosphere of Earth and other planets slowly flow into space. Hot gases, especially light gases, evaporate, chemical reactions and particle collisions eject atoms and molecules, and comets and asteroids sometimes tear off large chunks of the atmosphere.
The leak explains many of the mysteries of the solar system. For example, Mars is red because its water vapor has split into hydrogen and oxygen; hydrogen flew into space, and oxygen oxidized (covered with rust) the soil. A similar process on Venus led to the appearance of a dense atmosphere of carbon dioxide. Surprisingly, Venus's mighty atmosphere is the result of a gas leak.

The Earth is losing its atmosphere! Are we at risk of oxygen starvation?

Researchers were amazed by a recent discovery: it turned out that our planet is losing its atmosphere faster than Venus and Mars due to the fact that it has a much larger and more powerful magnetic field.

This may mean that the Earth's magnetic field is not so good protective screen, as was previously assumed. Scientists were confident that it was thanks to the action magnetic field The Earth's atmosphere is well protected from the harmful effects of the Sun. But it turned out that the Earth’s magnetosphere contributes to the thinning of the Earth’s atmosphere due to the accelerated loss of oxygen.

According to Christopher Russell, a professor of geophysics and a specialist in space physics at the University of California, scientists are accustomed to believing that humanity is extremely lucky with its earthly “residence”: the Earth’s remarkable magnetic field, they say, perfectly protects us from solar “attacks” - cosmic rays, solar flares Sun and solar wind. Now it turns out that the earth’s magnetic field is not only a protector, but also an enemy.

A group of specialists led by Russell came to this conclusion during collaboration at the Comparative Planetology Conference.

ODDITIES OF A VAPORIZING PLANET: A LOOK INTO THE ATMOSPHERE

For the first time, it was possible to observe processes occurring in the atmosphere of a planet far beyond the boundaries of the solar system.

Apparently, these processes are caused by a bright flare on the planet’s mother star - however, first things first.

Exoplanet HD 189733b is a gas giant like Jupiter, although it is about 14% larger and slightly heavier. The planet orbits the star HD 189733, at a distance of about 4.8 million km (and 63 light years from us), that is, about 30 times closer than the Earth is to the Sun. It makes a full revolution around its parent star in 2.2 Earth days, the temperature on its surface reaches over 1000 ° C. The star itself is of the solar type, having approximately 80% solar size and weight.

From time to time, HD 189733b passes between the star and us, which made it possible to change the luminosity of the star not only to detect the presence of a planet, but also to show the presence of its atmosphere, and in the atmosphere - water vapor (read: “There is water”). It was also discovered that it is constantly losing hydrogen, in fact, being an “evaporating” planet. This “evaporation” turned out to be a rather complicated story.

In the spring of 2010, I observed one of the transits - the passage of a planet between its star and us space telescope Hubble, which found no evidence of either an atmosphere or evaporation. And in the fall of 2011, while observing the transit of the same HD 189733b, on the contrary, he provided very eloquent evidence of both, recording an entire gas “tail” leaving the planet: the “evaporation” rate calculated on this basis was no less than 1 thousand tons of substance per second. In addition, the flow developed millions of kilometers per hour.

To understand this, the Swift X-ray telescope was connected to the case. It was their joint work that made it possible for the first time to record interactions between a distant star and its planet. Swift observed the same transit in September 2011, and about eight hours before the start of work, Hubble detected a powerful flare on the surface of the star HD 189733. In the X-ray range, the star's radiation jumped 3.6 times.

The scientists' conclusions are logical: located very close to the star, the gas planet received a fair blow as a result of the flare - in the X-ray range it was tens of thousands of times more powerful than everything that the Earth receives even during the most powerful (X-class) flares on the Sun. And when you consider the enormous size of HD 189733b, it turns out that the planet was exposed to millions of times more X-rays than is possible from an X-class flare on the Sun. It was this exposure that led to her rapidly losing substance.

During a strong solar storm, the Earth loses about 100 tons of atmosphere.

Space Weather Facts

1. Solar flares can sometimes heat the solar surface to temperatures of 80 million F, which is hotter than the sun's core!


2. The fastest coronal mass ejection recorded was on August 4, 1972, and it traveled from the Sun to Earth in 14.6 hours - a speed of about 10 million kilometers per hour or 2,778 km/sec.


3. On April 8, 1947, the largest sunspot in recent history was recorded, with a maximum size exceeding 330 times the area of ​​the Earth.


4. The most powerful solar flare in the last 500 years occurred on September 2, 1859 and was discovered by two astronomers who were lucky enough to look at the sun at the right time!


5. Between May 10 and May 12, 1999, the solar wind pressure virtually disappeared, causing the Earth's magnetosphere to expand more than 100 times in volume!


6. Typical coronal mass ejections can be millions of kilometers in size, but the mass is equivalent to a small mountain!


7. Some sunspots are so cool that water vapor can form at a temperature of 1550 C.


8. The most powerful auroras can generate more than 1 trillion watts, which is comparable to an average earthquake.


9. On March 13, 1989, in Quebec (Canada), as a result of a major geomagnetic storm, a major power failure occurred, causing a power outage for 6 hours. Damage to the Canadian economy amounted to $6 billion


10. During intense solar flares, astronauts may see bright, flashing streaks of light from the impact of high-energy particles on the eyeballs.


11. The biggest challenge for astronauts traveling to Mars will be coping with solar storms and radiation.


12. Space weather forecasting costs just $5 million a year, but saves more than $500 billion in annual revenue from the satellite and electrical industries.


13. During the last solar cycle, $2 billion worth of satellite technology was damaged or destroyed.


14. A repeat of the Carrington event, like the one in 1859, could cost $30 billion a day for the US power grid and up to $70 billion for the satellite industry.


15. On August 4, 1972, a solar flare was so strong that, according to some estimates, an astronaut would have received a lethal dose of radiation during flight.


16. During the Maunder Minimum (1645-1715), accompanied by the onset of the Little Ice Age, the 11-year sunspot cycle was not detected.


17. In one second, the sun converts 4 million tons of matter into clean energy.


18. The Sun's core is almost as dense as lead and has a temperature of 15 million degrees C.


19. During a strong solar storm, the Earth loses about 100 tons of atmosphere.


20. Rare earth magnetic toys can have a magnetic field 5 times stronger than the magnetic field of sunspots.

One of the striking features of the Solar System is the diversity of planetary atmospheres. Earth and Venus are similar in size and mass, but Venus's surface is 460°C hot under an ocean of carbon dioxide that presses down on the surface like a kilometer-long layer of water.

Callisto and Titan are large satellites of Jupiter and Saturn, respectively; they are almost the same size, but Titan has an extensive nitrogen atmosphere , much larger than that of the Earth, and Callisto is practically devoid of atmosphere.

Where do such extremes come from? If we knew this, we could explain why the Earth is full of life, while other planets near it appear lifeless. By understanding how atmospheres evolve, we could determine which planets outside the solar system might be habitable.

The planet acquires gas cover in different ways. It can spew steam from its depths, it can capture volatile substances from comets and asteroids upon collision with them, or its gravity can attract gases from interplanetary space. In addition, planetary scientists come to the conclusion that the loss of gas plays as important a role as its acquisition.

Even the earth's atmosphere, which looks unshakable, gradually flows into outer space.

The rate of leakage is currently very small: about 3 kg of hydrogen and 50 g of helium (the two lightest gases) per second; but even such a trickle can become significant over a geological period, and the rate of loss may once have been much higher. As Benjamin Franklin wrote, “A small leak can sink a big ship.”
Current atmospheres of terrestrial planets and satellites of giant planets reminiscent of the ruins of medieval castles - these are the remnants of former luxury that have become a victim of robbery and dilapidation .
The atmospheres of even smaller bodies are like ruined forts - defenseless and easily vulnerable.

By recognizing the importance of atmospheric leakage, we are changing our understanding of the future of the solar system.
For decades, scientists have tried to understand why Mars is so thin.
atmosphere, but now we are surprised that he even retained
some kind of atmosphere.
Is the difference between Titan and Callisto due to the fact that Callisto lost its atmosphere before air appeared on Titan? Was Titan's atmosphere once denser than it is today? How did Venus retain nitrogen and carbon dioxide but lose all water?
Did a hydrogen leak contribute to the origin of life on Earth? Will our planet ever turn into a second Venus?

When it gets hot

If
The rocket has reached its second escape velocity, then it is moving so fast that it is able to overcome the gravity of the planet. The same can be said of atoms and molecules, although they usually achieve escape velocity without having a specific target.
During thermal evaporation, gases become so hot that they cannot be contained.
In non-thermal processes, atoms and molecules are ejected as a result of chemical reactions or the interaction of charged particles. Finally, when colliding with asteroids and comets, entire pieces of the atmosphere are torn off.

The most common process of these three is thermal evaporation. All bodies in the solar system are heated by sunlight. They get rid of this heat in two ways: by emitting infrared radiation and by evaporating the substance. In long-lived objects, such as the Earth, the first process dominates, and, for example, in comets, the second process dominates. If the balance between heating and cooling is upset, even a large body the size of Earth can heat up quite quickly, and at the same time its atmosphere, which usually contains a small fraction of the mass of the planet, can evaporate quite quickly.
Our solar system is filled with bodies devoid of air, apparently mainly due to thermal evaporation. A body becomes airless if solar heating exceeds a certain threshold, depending on the body's gravitational force.
Thermal evaporation occurs in two ways.
The first is called Jeans evaporation in honor of the English astrophysicist James Jeans, who described this phenomenon at the beginning of the 20th century.
In this case, the air from the upper layer of the atmosphere literally evaporates atom by atom, molecule by molecule. In lower layers, mutual collisions hold particles together, but above a level called the exobase (at Earth's 500 km above the surface), the air is so thin that gas particles almost never collide. Above the exobase, nothing can stop an atom or molecule that has sufficient speed to fly into space.

Hydrogen, as the lightest gas, overcomes the planet's gravity more easily than others. But first he must get to the exobase, and on Earth this is a long process.
Molecules containing hydrogen usually do not rise above the lower atmosphere: water vapor (H2O) condenses and falls down as rain, and methane (CH4) oxidizes and turns into carbon dioxide (CO2). Some water and methane molecules reach the stratosphere and break down, releasing hydrogen, which slowly diffuses upward until it reaches the exobase. Some hydrogen escapes, as evidenced by ultraviolet images showing a halo of hydrogen atoms around our planet.

The temperature at the height of the Earth's exobase fluctuates around 1000 K, which corresponds to average speed hydrogen atoms about 5 km/s.
This is less than the second escape velocity for the Earth at this altitude (10.8 km/s); but the atomic velocities around the mean are widely distributed, so some hydrogen atoms have a chance to overcome the planet's gravity. The leakage of particles from the high-speed “tail” in their velocity distribution explains from 10 to 40% of the Earth’s loss of hydrogen. The evaporation of Jeans partly explains the lack of an atmosphere on the Moon: gases emerging from under the surface of the Moon easily evaporate into space.

The second path of thermal evaporation is more effective. While during Jeans evaporation the gas escapes molecule by molecule, the heated gas can escape entirely. The upper layers of the atmosphere can absorb ultraviolet radiation The sun heats up and, expanding, pushes air upward.
As the air rises, it accelerates, overcomes the speed of sound and reaches escape velocity. This form of thermal evaporation is called
hydrodynamic outflow, or planetary wind (by analogy with the solar wind - a stream of charged particles ejected by the Sun into space).

Basic provisions

Many
The gases that make up the atmosphere of the Earth and other planets slowly flow into space. Hot gases, especially light gases, evaporate, chemical
reactions and collisions of particles lead to the ejection of atoms and molecules, and
comets and asteroids sometimes tear off large chunks of the atmosphere.
The leak explains many of the mysteries of the solar system. For example, Mars is red because its water vapor has split into hydrogen and oxygen; hydrogen flew into space, and oxygen oxidized (covered with rust) the soil.
A similar process on Venus led to the appearance of a dense atmosphere from
carbon dioxide. Surprisingly, Venus's mighty atmosphere is the result of a gas leak.

David Catling and Kevin Zahnle
Magazine "In the World of Science"

The Earth is losing its atmosphere! Are we at risk of oxygen starvation?

Researchers were amazed by a recent discovery: it turned out that our planet is losing its atmosphere faster than Venus and Mars due to the fact that it has a much larger and more powerful magnetic field.

This may mean that the Earth's magnetic field is not as good a protective shield as previously thought. Scientists were confident that it was thanks to the action of the Earth's magnetic field that the atmosphere was well protected from the harmful effects of the Sun. But it turned out that the Earth’s magnetosphere contributes to the thinning of the Earth’s atmosphere due to the accelerated loss of oxygen.

According to Christopher Russell, a professor of geophysics and a specialist in space physics at the University of California, scientists are accustomed to believing that humanity is extremely lucky with its earthly “residence”: the Earth’s remarkable magnetic field, they say, perfectly protects us from solar “attacks” - cosmic rays, solar flares Sun and solar wind. Now it turns out that the earth’s magnetic field is not only a protector, but also an enemy.

A group of specialists led by Russell came to this conclusion while working together at the Conference of Comparative Planetology.