How does the earths magnetic field protect us from the solar winds? How much X-rays energy is produced?
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M$2 Answers
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The Earth is like a great big magnet. The north pole of the magnet is near the top of the planet, near the geographic north pole, and the south pole is near the geographic south pole. Magnetic field lines extend from these poles for tens of thousands of kilometers into space; this is the Earth's magneto sphere.
Scientists think that the Earth's magnetic field is generated by electrical currents flowing in the liquid outer core deep inside the Earth. Although it's liquid metal, it moves around through a process called convection. And the movements of metal in the core sets up the currents and magnetic field.
The magnetic field of the Earth protects the planet from space radiation. The biggest culprit is the Sun's solar wind. These are highly charged particles blasted out from the Sun like a steady wind. The Earth's Magnetosphere channels the solar wind around the planet, so that it doesn't impact us. Without the magnetic field, the solar wind would strip away our atmosphere (this is what probably happened to Mars). The Sun also releases enormous amounts of energy and material in Coronal Mass Ejections. These CMEs send a hail of radioactive particles into space. Once again, the Earth's magnetic field protects us, channeling the particles away from the planet, and sparing us from getting irradiated.
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A typical coronal mass ejection can release 100 billion kilograms of solar material, and the speed of this material can approach 1000 km/second. In fact, solar flares and coronal mass ejections are the biggest explosions in the Solar System, approaching the power of one billion hydrogen bombs.
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High-energy (X-3) solar flare on 13 December 2006.
"Quote from www.windows.ucar.edu"
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X-rays lie between ultraviolet "light" and gamma rays on the electromagnetic spectrum. X-rays have wavelengths between about 10 nanometers (10 x 10-9 meters) and 10 picometers (10 x 10-12 meters). X-ray radiation oscillates at rates between about 30 petahertz (PHz or 1015 hertz) and 30 exahertz (EHz or 1018 hertz).
X-rays are subdivided into hard X-rays and soft X-rays. The lower energy soft X-rays have longer wavelengths, while the higher energy hard X-rays have shorter wavelengths. The cutoff between the two types of X-rays is around a wavelength of 100 picometers or an energy level around 10 keV per photon. X-rays with energies between 10 keV and a few hundred keV are considered hard X-rays.
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M$http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_wind#Magnetospheres
Charge exchange occurs when a positively charged particle interacts with a neutral atom and captures one of its electrons.
http://pluto.space.swri.edu/image/glossary/charge_exchange.html
As a result of this, some x-ray emission is associated with the aurora.
http://www.nasaimages.org/luna/servlet/detail/NVA2~4~4~4077~104603:X-Ray-Earth
This x-ray emission is highly variable and correlates well with solar activity. I haven't found a source giving the x-ray brightness of an aurora, but the total energy release by a single auroral display is on the order of 10^14 joules over the course of a few hours.
http://www.mssl.ucl.ac.uk/~gbr/page8.html
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M$
Exactly.
Why don't the X-ray emissions affect us on earth?
The x-ray emission is weak enough that it's absorbed by the atmosphere before reaching the earth's surface.
In short: X-rays don’t penetrate the Earth’s atmosphere because is thick enough that virtually none are able to penetrate, so x-ray telescopes must be in space to observe them.
"Quote from en.wikipedia.org"
X-ray astronomy is an observational branch of astronomy, which deals with the study of X-ray emission from celestial objects. X-ray radiation is absorbed by the Earth's atmosphere, so instruments to observe X-rays must be taken to high altitude, in the past with balloons and sounding rockets. Nowadays, X-ray astronomy is part of space research and X-ray detectors are placed in satellites.
X-rays span 3 decades in wavelength, frequency and energy. From 10 to 0.1 nanometers (nm) (about 0.12 to 12 keV) they are classified as soft x-rays, and from 0.1 nm to 0.01 nm (about 12 to 120 keV) as hard X-rays.
Although the more energetic X-rays, photons with an energy greater than 30 keV (4,800 aJ) can penetrate the air at least for distances of a few meters (they would never have been detected and medical X-ray machines would not work if this was not the case) the Earth's atmosphere is thick enough that virtually none are able to penetrate from outer space all the way to the Earth's surface.
X-rays in the 0.5 to 5 keV (80 to 800 aJ) range, where most celestial sources give off the bulk of their energy, can be stopped by a few sheets of paper; ninety percent of the photons in a beam of 3 keV (480 aJ) X-rays are absorbed by traveling through just 10 cm of air.
To observe X-rays from the sky, the X-ray detectors must be flown above most of the Earth's atmosphere. There are three main methods of doing so: sounding rocket flights, balloons, and satellites. Satellites are the method preferred by scientists now.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/X-ray_astronomy
