

Hidden Portals in Earth's Magnetic Field - espeed
http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/sunearth/news/mag-portals.html

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bitwize
"Cave Johnson here. I think we found something that will help us stick it to
those blowhards at Black Mesa. Turns out there's a natural portal phenomenon
connecting the magnetic fields of the earth and the sun. The lab boys are
still trying to figure out the properties of this thing, see how it can be
exploited for science, so we need volunteers. All test subjects who want to go
on an all-expense-paid trip to the surface of the sun please meet in Testing
Annex 5B and await further instructions. There's $60 in it for you if you make
it back alive!"

~~~
mullingitover
> " All test subjects who want to go on an all-expense-paid trip to the
> surface of the sun please meet in Testing Annex 5B and await further
> instructions. There's $60 in it for you if you make it back alive!"

And don't worry, it's winter so the sun's not very hot right now.

~~~
derleth
> And don't worry, it's winter so the sun's not very hot right now.

We'll also be going at night, so bring flashlights.

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jerf
"A favorite theme of science fiction is "the portal"--an extraordinary opening
in space or time that connects travelers to distant realms. A good portal is a
shortcut, a guide, a door into the unknown. If only they actually existed....
It turns out that they do, sort of,..."

Yes, if by "sort of", you mean, "not at all like how science fiction uses the
term". What a terrible opening.

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convecore
This was a weirdly written article. Scientists have known for a long time that
the Earth's magnetic field connects with the Sun's, and that along those
connected paths stream a lot of ejected Sun material in the form of plasma. To
call that a portal seems like a bizarre attempt at exciting public interest.
The big discovery here, that was done by Scudder, was to have found places
where that magnetic field connects with the Earth's magnetic field, called
reconnection points. The other discovery was they appear transient, and to me
was not surprising.

~~~
fragsworth
> To call that a portal seems like a bizarre attempt at exciting public
> interest.

This wouldn't be weird if it were some crap news source, but it's kind of
surprising that it's coming from NASA.

~~~
aaronblohowiak
Since writers are journalism majors, not science majors and the pr hierarchy
is distinct from the research hierarchy.

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s_husso
They dub it as 'the portal' but it seems that there is just a really long,
93million miles-long, magnetic field that connects the magnetic field of Earth
and Sun. So I assume that it doesn't mean that we can 'throw stuff' at one end
and expect it to come instantly over to the other end?

Can someone explain is there an application where we could utilize this
discovery?

~~~
46Bit
I'd surmise that a miniature probe could get a free trajectory to the Sun by
taking advantage of this. Not sure how low a mass it would have to be though.

~~~
madaxe
Why miniature? Hook into the MFLs with some big coils and you can drag pretty
much anything through the field. The sun's magnetic field is _immensely_
powerful compared to anything we're familiar with on earth.

~~~
oddthink
The solar wind is a few nT, while Earth's field is tens of uT. You're not
going to be moving anything with that.

~~~
madaxe
Not talking solar wind in terms of photon pressure, talking magnetic flux
coupling.

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btilly
This phenomena between the Earth and the Sun reminds me of
<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4867577>. Is it possible that what
Voyager 1 is currently encountering is an interaction between the Solar and
the Galactic magnetic fields that resembles this Earth-Sun phenomena?

I'd never really thought about the existence of a galactic magnetic field. But
when I think about it, why wouldn't it happen?

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stephengillie
_Tons of energetic particles can flow through the openings, heating Earth's
upper atmosphere, sparking geomagnetic storms, and igniting bright polar
auroras._

This is obviously a very direct link between our star's 11-year cycle and our
planet's weather. What else is caused by this flow of energetic material?
Could this be the source of the stray electrons or cosmic rays that seed
clouds in our atmosphere?

~~~
ChuckMcM
Well one of the key topics of climate modelling has been trying to predict
energy transfer from the Sun to the Earth. Generally we talk about CO2 and the
greenhouse effect but lately there have a number of experiments that have
shown that somehow the solar wind can also have a large impact. These points
where the alignment of the magnetic fields allow the solar wind to shoot
directly into the Earth's atmosphere provides another piece to the puzzle.

~~~
fzzzy
Well, the solar wind is really a stream of electrons and positive ions.
Charges of opposite sign moving in relation to each other are more commonly
known as an electric current. Electric current generates heat and a magnetic
field.

It seems to me that the "portals" as they call them are just places where the
insulation of the earth's upper atmosphere breaks down and begins to conduct a
current. It becomes ionized, a plasma. The fact that these "portals" would
then sometimes appear and disappear should then be obvious and predictable to
anyone who has ever watched one of those novelty plasma globes.

They would also know that it's pretty much impossible to predict, though.

~~~
ChuckMcM
One of the interesting side effects of plasma streams impacting the atmosphere
is that they transfer kinetic energy. Early models of the climate (I've not
checked the most recent one the IPCC is endorsing) were strictly radiation
based (how much energy is absorbed by atmosphere, ground, how much is
reflected, and re-radiated off) generally kinetic effects were considered
minor or immaterial because the magnetic field deflects most of the solar
wind. So when a CME heads our way, the "mass" gets pushed aside by magnetic
repulsion and the energy transfer is minimal (some angular velocity imparted
to the planet). But if the mass is _not_ moved aside and impacts the
atmosphere directly, it transfers its kinetic energy to the atmospheric gas
which comes back as a net rise in temperature.

If the effect is significant it could inform observations on solar activity
and climate that were previously missing a plausible theory for connecting
them. These 'portals' have the nice property that you can map them with a
satellite and you can then correlate those maps with atmospheric effects. That
should help us with the models we're using.

~~~
fzzzy
That makes sense. Because the broadside shove impacts the atmosphere with a
relatively smooth voltage gradient if the solar wind is fairly even, then the
atmosphere may not break down and conduct, and the resulting e field
differential will impart kinetic energy into the molecules of the upper
atmosphere. This energy has to go somewhere, so it just turns into random
turbulence in the air until all the energy that was supplied is consumed.

But surely lightning strikes must also cause heating? Electric arc discharges
on the order of gigajoules and milliseconds [1] works out to a lot of watts. I
guess it averages out though because the amount of timespace with no-
lightning-strike is much greater than that with lightning-strike.

[1]
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lightning#Harvesting_lightning_...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lightning#Harvesting_lightning_energy)

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coelhudo
There are a lot of videos here: <http://www.youtube.com/user/ScienceAtNASA>

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ilanco
Old news <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=92rYjlxqypM> #ingress

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loceng
Similar energies exist between people as well..

~~~
stephengillie
Humans don't have enough protons and electrons to generate magnetic fields of
that many microTeslas...

~~~
loceng
I don't know where on the spectrum the energy would be, nor how strong it
would need to be.

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bitteralmond
Though this is cool, I'm not entirely sure what this is good for. How will we
use these portals?

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negamax
I have no idea what I just read but it sounded facinating

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madaxe
This... is very, very similar to this:
[http://www.theregister.co.uk/2012/12/04/voyager_one_arrives_...](http://www.theregister.co.uk/2012/12/04/voyager_one_arrives_on_magnetic_highway/)

Same phenomenon. Different scales. And evidently two research groups at NASA
who don't talk.

