Magnetic Storms
Jun 07, 2011

In 1903, Kristian Birkeland's Arctic expedition led him to propose that the aurorae were electrically energized by currents flowing parallel to the formation. Since electric currents flow in closed circuits, and since the auroral glow seemed to be caused by processes in distant space, he suggested that the currents travel down from space at one end of the arc and then back out to space at the other end.

In 1973, the U.S. Navy satellite Triad flew through this electrically charged layer. The onboard magnetometer found two gigantic current sheets, each carrying a million amperes or more, one descending on the auroral zone's morning side and one ascending on the evening side.

Physical processes require an energy input that can change from one form to another. Consensus views also suggest that this holds true for geomagnetic, or auroral, substorms. It is no accident, according to scientists, that they take place when the interplanetary magnetic field (IMF) slants to the South. The southern orientation, it is said, means faster "reconnection" between interplanetary and terrestrial field lines, initiating rapid release of magnetic fields and plasma from Earth's sunlit side.

How this energy is released, as well as what starts the process, are still controversial subjects. Energy in nature cannot be destroyed, as the conservation of energy law states; it changes from one form to another. When electricity powers a motor, it is converted to kinetic energy. When friction stops motion, the kinetic energy converts to heat. Magnetic energy is also thought to reappear in different forms. Some becomes heat, increasing the velocity of plasma ions and electrons. Some of the energy ends up driving electric currents in a circuit linking the plasma sheet with Earth.

Don Scott's commentary about magnetic reconnection should be kept in mind when reading reports from NASA about Earth's interaction with the plasma stream (commonly called the solar wind) and electromagnetic energy radiating from the Sun. He notes that magnetic field lines are only convenient ideas and nothing more. They indicate a magnetic field’s direction. Schematic diagrams consisting of magnetic field lines are useful for visualizing its shape and strength, although lines of force do not exist in space anymore than lines of latitude or longitude do.

Magnetic field lines do not move, since the field is continuous. Consensus opinions ignore that fact and speak of field lines that can move, touch, merge, and "detonate." Scott's observation is that if this idea were to be applied to circles of longitude, they would come together and "merge" in the polar regions and could be theorized to be the source of gravitational energy.

There is no such thing as "magnetic merging" or "reconnection" of magnetic field lines in the real world. The energy comes from electrical currents, which can move, touch, merge, and detonate. The cellular structure confining electric currents in space is not directly observable, except by flying a space probe through them. They have been detected on Earth and in near-space.

Do we assume that the Solar System is the only place in the Universe where electric currents play an active role? Electric Universe advocates prefer to assume that the space beyond our Solar System obeys the same physical laws of plasma interaction that are observed here. Those laws are founded in electricity.

Stephen Smith