How Vital Is a Planet's Magnetic Field? New Debate | Earth & Magnetic Field, Space Weather | Mars, Venus, Solar Wind | LiveScience
Solar wind particles generate the aurora phenomena in the Earth’s atmosphere.
CREDIT: NASA
Our nearest planetary neighbors, Mars and Venus, have no oceans or lakes
or rivers. Some researchers have speculated that they were blown dry by the solar wind, and that our Earth escaped this fate because its strong magnetic field deflects the wind. However, a debate has arisen over whether a magnetic field is any kind of shield at all.
The controversy stems from recent observations that show Mars and Venus are losing oxygen ions from their atmospheres into space at about the same rate as Earth. This came as something of a surprise, since only Earth has a strong dipolar magnetic fieldthat can prevent solar wind particles from slamming into the upper atmosphere and directly stripping away ions. [...]
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This story from Astrobiology Magazine was provided by SPACE.com, a sister site to LiveScience.
I suspect it's less a matter of the magnetic field protecting us, and more of the field being the result of friction between the solar wind, our planet's combination and composition of elements, and the placement and size of our moon, an interdependent system every aspect of which is necessary to what we are and what life on this planet is. I suspect that the outer planets were once much like Earth, and that if the Sun expands more slowly than expected or doesn't expand for some weird reason and fails to engulf us when it's thought it will Earth will eventually (in some billions of years) be like them, that under those circumstances Mercury and Venus would one day resemble Earth, although not perhaps with the makeup that fosters life forms with which we're familiar or that we'd consider 'intelligent', and they would be replaced by other planets like them until the Sun runs out of material to eject in large quantities (which perhaps it already has). We'll see. Science will figure it out one day although space will continue to offer new insights and curiosities for... well essentially -ever in my opinion, for whatever that's worth. :D
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