Saturday, June 20, 2009

The Moon And Earth's Magnetic Field

I have a new idea to introduce concerning the earth's magnetic field. I have come to believe that the gravitational effect of the moon is an important factor in the strength of the field.

We know that planetary magnetic fields are caused by the churning of the molten iron cores at the center of the planet. The resulting magnetic field is greatly strengthened if the planet rotates rapidly, which is why Mercury and Venus have weak magnetic fields because their rotation periods, or days, are so long. Jupiter has a very powerful magnetic field because it rotates in just over 11 hours.

However, I believe that there is a yet undocumented factor in the strength of earth's field. My hypothesis is that there exists a bizzarre kind of weightlessness at the center of a planet because the gravitational pull from all directions is balanced out so that the net gravity is close to zero. Thus, as incredible as it sounds, the pull of the moon's gravity becomes a factor in the earth's molten iron core as it orbits the earth every month and exerts it's pull from different directions.

I realize that the mass of the moon is only one in eighty-one times that of the earth. But if the moon can cause tides in the earth's oceans at the surface of the earth, where the earth's gravity is aligned, why should it not also be a factor in the earth's molten iron core, where gravity from the sorrounding earth has cancelled out? The earth is 8,000 miles in diameter while the moon is 239,000 miles from earth so that the center of the earth is less than 2% further from the moon than the surface of the earth. This causes the iron core to churn more and gives the earth a stronger magnetic field than it would have otherwise.

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