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Why is only half of Mars magnetized?

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Re: Why is only half of Mars magnetized?

#22

Does this indicate that half of mars has useful enough magnetism to shield it from solar radiation for human habitation purposes? (I honestly don't know the answer or how to discern it from google).

NASA wanted to (or still) put a satellite at L1 point near Mars to create an artificial magnetic shield. http://www.popularmechanics.com/space/moon-mars/a25493/magne...

[deleted]

Re: Why is only half of Mars magnetized?

#24
post #7

Does this indicate that half of mars has useful enough magnetism to shield it from solar radiation for human habitation purposes? (I honestly don't know the answer or how to discern it from google).

The field is only 2.5% of Earth's. That's way too weak, I suspect.

Isn't Mars around 2AU from the sun? That should weaken solar wind by quite a bit, i.e. by around 4x.

Re: Why is only half of Mars magnetized?

#26
post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The field is only 2.5% of Earth's. That's way too weak, I suspect.

Isn't Mars around 2AU from the sun? That should weaken solar wind by quite a bit, i.e. by around 4x.

Only if solar wind can be modeled by a uniform field. Radiation from flares might not drop off in an inverse squared relationship, but I'm not an astrophysicist so this is just speculation.

Re: Why is only half of Mars magnetized?

#30
post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn't Mars around 2AU from the sun? That should weaken solar wind by quite a bit, i.e. by around 4x.

Only if solar wind can be modeled by a uniform field. Radiation from flares might not drop off in an inverse squared relationship, but I'm not an astrophysicist so this is just speculation.

Flares shouldn‘t be uniform, but I‘m doubting that they‘d disturb a terraformed Martian ecosystem much as they are quite rare. I‘m guessing some moderate EM hardening of electronics would be enough. As we should have here btw., the next one-in-200y flare is not going to be pretty.
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