Earth Magnetic Field is a Protective Shield

The Earth magnetic field, also called the geomagnetic field,  extends from the Earth’s centre to as much as 65,000 km in space. The Earth self generates the magnetic field in its core. Human understanding is that at the centre of the Earth there is an iron ball roughly the size of the moon that has solidified under pressure. This ball of iron floats in the middle of a sphere about the size of Mars, largely composed of molten iron and nickel. The temperature at the Earth’s core is 6000 degrees Celsius. This core is surrounded by a solid mantel that is 2900 km deep made up of rock and various minerals with a crust at its surface. We walk on the crust of the Earth.

Image shows the Earth magnetic field in space

Simply put a magnetic field is the area around a magnet, in our case the Earth’s core, in which there is a magnetic force that moves electric charges. The molten iron and nickel core operates somewhat like an electricity generator, where the convective kinetic energy is converted to electrical and magnetic energy thus creating the electric currents creating the Earth’s magnetic field.

This is why on the surface of the planet a magnetic compass points north influenced by the electric magnetism in the magnetosphere. At Earth’s surface, the Earth magnetic field is fairly weak, about 100 times weaker than that of a refrigerator magnet.

One of the reasons why the Earth is a habitable planet that is friendly to human life is because the Earth magnetic field shelters the planet from the harmful radiation coming from the sun, called the solar winds.

The solar wind is a stream of energized, electrically charged particles, primarily electrons and protons, flowing outward from the Sun, through the solar system at speeds of up to 800 km per second and at a temperature of 1 million degrees Celsius, reaching the Earth in days.

The Earth magnetic field deflects most of the solar wind and the charged particles that would otherwise strip away the ozone layer that protects the Earth from harmful ultraviolet radiation.

If the material carried by the solar wind reached a planet’s surface, its radiation would exterminate any life that might otherwise exist. The Earth magnetic field serves as a shield, redirecting the material around the planet so that it streams beyond it. The force of the wind stretches out the magnetic field so that it is squashed inward on the sun-side and stretched out on the night side. This geomagnetic field is vital for keeping our atmosphere in place, thus protecting the biosphere that enables life on Earth to exist.

Image shows how the Earth magnetic field protects the Earth from the solar winds

Over the past fifty years scientists have realised that hundreds of organisms such as bacteria, unicellular organisms and animals have the ability to detect and respond to this geomagnetic field. The discovery that living cells have the ability to build nanocrystals of the ferromagnetic mineral magnetite was key to this understanding.

In some animals, such as honey bees, the geomagnetic behavioural responses are as strong as the responses to light, smell or touch. Biologists have identified strong responses also in fish, amphibians, reptiles, numerous birds and a diverse variety of mammals including whales, rodents, bats, cows and dogs. In all of these cases, the animals are using the geomagnetic field as components of their homing and navigation abilities. It is in fact a sixth sense.

These magnetite crystals have now also been found within tissues of the human brain which means that we also may have a sub-conscious sense that allows our brain to detect the Earth’s magnetic field and to register magnetic shifts. The full extent of our magnetic inheritance remains to be discovered.

The Earth in space exists in a hostile environment and life on Earth should not be taken for granted. The preconditions for life on Earth evolved over billions of years and continue to be kept in dynamic balance for us by nature. Nature, electricity, geomagnetic field, solar wind, magnetite, biosphere are names we have invented to talk about forces and processes that we do not fully understand and that we exploit. It is not what they actually are. We should have the humility not to interfere with these processes and the wisdom to protect and restore them.

This article was published in the Senior Times of the Times of Malta on the 18th July 2020

Source: Article “New evidence for a human sense that lets your brain detect the Earth’s geomagnetic fieldpublished in the ‘The Conversation’. 

Studies not linked in the article: 

The geomagnetic sense and its use in long-distance navigation by animals

Geomagnetic Orientation in Animals

Transduction of the Geomagnetic Field as Evidenced from alpha-Band Activity in the Human Brain