Tim Froehlig

1
The Earths Magnetosphere Solar Wind

• Tim Froehlig Bevan Gerber-Siff
• Thursday, July 22, 2004

2
What Were Gonna Say

• Solar wind
• Magnetosphere
• Interactions between the 2 phenomena
• Dismal experiment failure
• Aurora borealis

What are they?
3
Solar Wind

• The Sun is constantly spraying stuff
• Speed varies (300-800 km/s)
• Particle Density (amount of stuff) also varies

4
SoHO

• Solar and Heliospheric Observatory
• Joint ESA/NASA project
• Launched Dec 2, 1995
• Lies 1.5 million km from Earth
• A bunch of instruments pointed at the Sun

5
Magnetosphere

• The Earth is a large magnet
• Has a magnetosphere (field lines)
• Shields us from stuff

6
Our Dismal Failure

• Tried to make instrument to monitor magnetosphere
• In Tims dorm room on 4th floor
• Excessive vibration pollution

7
In Retrospect

• Couldve isolated instruments more
• More time to take data
• More distance between dot and magnet
• Farther from potential electromagnetic fields

8
HAARP and Other Magnetometers

• Used data from a series of magnetometers in
  Alaska and Northern Canada
• More accurate than we possibly couldve been
• Many crippling conditions found in UCSC are not
  present

9
What Does This Have to do With Anything?!

• Solar wind constantly warps Earths magnetosphere
• Causes field line directions and field strength
  to vary
• Variation is measurable
• Solar wind takes 3 days to reach Earth

10
Data Plots!
11
July 15, 2004
12
Data Plots!
July 15, 2004
13
Aurora Borealis

• Occurs near poles (weak field lines)
• Caused by solar wind hitting upper atmosphere
• Light up sky
• Without magnetosphere entire sky on sunny side
  would light up (but wed all die)

14
The Day the Solar Wind Disappeared

• May 10-12, 1999
• Solar Wind stopped?
• 98 less dense than normal
• ½ normal speed
• Coronal electrons reached Earth
• Über-Aurora Borealis (x-ray spectrum)
• Magnetosphere expanded to 5x normal

15
Have You Been Paying Attention?

• From the ashes of disaster Failed experiment
  lead to interesting research
• Lasers are FUN!
• What we said
• -Magnetosphere
• -Solar Wind
• -Correlation
• -Our Experiment sucked
• -Aurora Borealis is COOL