Earth Is a Safe Haven

Recent news articles show how mechanisms protect earth’s inhabitants from a hail of bullets overhead.

[Note: CEH is taking a break this week. These news items are presented for those who wish to follow up on them.]

Could recent supernovae be responsible for mass extinctions? (Phys.org). The effects of a supernova might be surprisingly mild, thanks to earth’s ozone layer.

Van Allen Radiation Belts: Facts & Findings (Space.com). Things you should know about the lobes that shield us from cosmic bullets.

Radial Transport of Higher‐Energy Oxygen Ions Into the Deep Inner Magnetosphere Observed by Van Allen Probes (Geophysical Research Letters). Details about how the Van Allen Belts protect earth from killer electrons.

Explaining the apparent impenetrable barrier to ultra-relativistic electrons in the outer Van Allen belt (Nature Communications). More detail and clarification about our protective shields.

Moon dust is super toxic to human cells (Space.com). But earth dirt is good (see 19 May 2018 entry).

Earth’s magnetic field is probably not reversing (PNAS). Admits that magnetic field energy is decaying at 5% per century. Read ch. 7 of Spacecraft Earth by Richter about why that matters.

Why Earth’s Magnetic Field Might Not Flip After All (Live Science).

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