earth's magnetic feild

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Nigel Goodwin said:
You haven't read enough adventure books, or watched enough films - compasses are useless anywhere near the poles.

Hi, NIgel,

your observation is right sie. very lessnovels or adventur films -though a physics and maths graduate of 1964, subsequently turned to telecom as profession. now all silly doubts.

thanks
 
Just think of the astronauts and cosmonauts that spend months in space, partially unprotected by our planets magnetic field
actually the magnetosphere stretches far beyond our orbit where space ship and stations are located. When the went on the Moon they might of felt the effect (if they went). I remember the russians where afraid of sending a man beyond magnetosphere.
Also i reckon those ships have some kind of protection...
 

just to add... there are two natural Van Allen radiation belts, trapped inside the magnetosphere that pose a minor risk to astronauts and space borne equipment... I think the inner belt is around 400 miles and the outer belt is much much further, something like 45000 miles... and the magnetosphere boundary is beyond that even!

we also have protection of our sun that will help should the magnetic field give way - thankfully our sun is a rather cool star, not giving off much radiation past ultraviolet (x-ray pictures of the sun are all rather dark), but its powerful magnetic and particle fields shield the entire solar system from much of the cosmic radiation.
 
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