Can Obama respond to giant hole in Earths magnetosphere by 2012?
NASA scientists on December 16, 2008 announced that “THEMIS spacecraft have discovered a breach in Earth’s magnetic field ten times larger than anything previously thought to exist.” NASA’s THEMIS mission comprises 5 probes launched in February 2007 to measure the Earth’s magnetic field. According to Wenhui Li, a University of New Hampshire space physicist analyzing the NASA THEMIS mission: “The opening was huge—four times wider than Earth itself.”Jimmy Raeder, another University of New Hampshire scientist analyzing the THEMIS project data said: “We’ve seen things like this before but never on such a large scale. The entire day-side of the magnetosphere was open to the solar wind.” The breach is allowing up to 20 times the normal amount of solar particles to enter the Earth’s atmosphere according to the NASA announcement. The breach in the magnetosphere was not causing any great concern for the moment since solar activity is at a minimum. In fact, the last time the sun was so inactive
