Radiation belts detected around Earth after solar storm
sciencealert.com
sciencealert.com
The belts themselves are an effect of Earth's magnetic field, which I believe is particularly strong because of flow within the Earth's liquid iron-nickel outer core. (I had long believed that the spinning of the inner core was the primary contributor but given a surface-level skim of the literature that doesn't seem to be the case; convection seems to be more of a driver.)
I think perhaps many otherwise similar planets don't have a liquid iron core, so they may not have the strong radiation belts that shield life from the solar wind. Of course I am not sure what fraction of otherwise-similar planets have liquid iron cores, but Mars for example does not seem to. It is probably a function of the size of a planet (governing the pressure distribution in the interior), the ratio of iron to other elements, the temperature field (a function of the amount of radiogenic elements in the planet and its age), and perhaps other factors. Other planets may not be hot enough to have a liquid iron core at the right pressures, or be too massive (too much pressure) at the right temperatures, etc.
Do they, though? Why is land the requirement? What's keeping life from, say, evolving to live deep underground? Or in the deep ocean? Both those places are heavily shielded from radiation, and organisms there wouldn't be affected much at all by not having a magnetosphere. Extremophiles on Earth get by just fine hanging around thermal vents, for instance. (Edit: this was mentioned above and I didn't see it - sorry for repeating.)
I think part of the problem with the Fermi paradox is that our base assumptions about what life needs are possibly a bit off. Maybe the fact that we have what we have is, well, quirky, and the fact that we evolved as living creatures that crawl around on the outside of our planet and need really fussy little temperatures to survive is just plain weird in comparison to the rest of the universe.
"Life as we know it" is a lot tougher criterion to meet than "life," I suspect.
I was going to say "obviously, nothing I said above would apply to life as we don't know it, like on the surface of a neutron star".
But there is one more factor. In the absence of a magnetic field, gas molecules can dissociate from being hit with the particles from the solar wind. E.g., water can dissociate into oxygen and hydrogen, and hydrogen having a relatively high RMS velocity readily leaks out to space. The remaining oxygen is too reactive to remain and then forms carbonates in rocks and carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. This is, from what I read, the explanation for the atmospheres of both Mars and Venus, which have only a small to non-existent magnetic field.
So yes, a magnetic field seems to be essential to holding a life-friendly atmosphere.
These fields could affect the launch and operation of satellites. Or maybe they will help shield us further? Or affect our atmosphere in some way? To be studied...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Starfish_Prime#After_effects
where they accidentally created a new radiation belt in orbit
and destroyed some of the first commercial satellites
I'm sure there was a 1950's sci-fi movie based on this premise.
Why isn’t there just void? So here we are on a tiny planet alone. Alone?
How did we get here? Are we living in a simulation? Maybe we are in Sim Planet game for another entity?
All of our existence is mystery.
The point is: just to enjoy the fleeting moment of consciousnees? Oh no, I bet you won't be satisfied with this answer and you want more...
Is it my preferred answer? I guess not :)
Why does this bother people? it isn't like the article is inducing mass hysteria.
> we've seen this phenomenon before
> I said, 'Wow, this is something really new'
> it's unsurprising
> Even so [...] what they saw surprised them.
I mean that's nerdy scientists for you, they get so into their thing it's kind of disgusting. I watched a documentary about volcanos once, it had a husband and wife team, they were just enthusing endlessly about their particular volcano that they were studying and it really turned me off. This was about 20 years ago and as a result I still hate vulcanologists, they totally overdid the sales pitch.
We know what the radiation belt is, where it is, and where it came from; so why exactly is this a ‘mystery?’
It’s actually getting harder and harder to even play devil’s advocate for the sake of ensuring we aren’t collectively ensnaring ourselves in destructive biases.
They think everything worth knowing is known. Art is “solved” as a problem. Science is absolute (even though science and math all reduce to nil by their own definition).
We’re seeing the steep rise of a new form of dogmatism unlike anything before save for theocracies.
This thread is all bickering about words and context that weren’t even present! It’s painful.
We ban accounts that do this and we've warned you more than once before. I don't want to ban you, so if you'd please fix this, that would be good.
I think there are few things less curious and less scientific than objecting to seeing mystery in the physical world.
I dont think it is hyperbolic or fearmongering to use mystery in conjunction is science.
For example, when describing a never before observed proton radiation belt, with unexplained duration. Or when most of that radiation belt is still uncharacterized and out of the detection range of instruments. Or when this never before seen proton belt is expected to last very long time, perhaps over a year, form a single transient storm [1].
https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1029/202...
I dont think it is appropriate to editorialize the titles of submission links to strip out authorial intent to highlight and share this mystery.
That said, The above text would have made a more robust critique that is more in-line with the sight guidelines. I just got fired up reading how much people hate scientists for their passion[2] and their application causal reductionism
Radiation? Radio! Antenas! Thpooky electro-magnetism at a distance? Is that a thing? Is there a chance?
( Sureley, you understand I'm only half joking here. )