Magnetic Field Around Spacecraft
- sameeradev7
- Sep 20, 2018
- 1 min read
Nithya and I found these articles about this topic:
https://phys.org/news/2017-03-nasa-magnetic-shield-mars-atmosphere.html
https://physicsworld.com/a/magnetic-shield-could-protect-spacecraft/
We also found that NASA suggested that by positioning a magnetic dipole shield at the Mars L1 Lagrange Point, an artificial magnetosphere could be formed that would encompass the entire planet, thus shielding it from solar wind and radiation.
(A Lagrange point is a location in space where the combined gravitational forces of two large bodies, such as Earth and the sun or Earth and the moon, equal the centrifugal force felt by a much smaller third body.)
Once the spacecraft reaches Mars, the magnetic field will still be deflecting that radiation, so in time, Mars will have acquired an atmosphere.
Comment more ideas :)
Dipole idea seems interesting. Good job Sameera and Nithya.
Think about how this idea can be implemented. What is this shield made up of. They say it is something inflatable. How big is this. Can it be transported easily. From the other link https://physicsworld.com/a/magnetic-shield-could-protect-spacecraft/ that you posted "supersonic plasma into a 1.5 m long vacuum vessel lined with magnetic coils, with a target magnet placed at the far end of the vessel correspond to a magnet of about 1 Tesla, which would be light enough to be transported into space". Bamford’s team showed that the target magnet deflected the plasma such that the volume of space surrounding the magnet was almost entirely free of plasma particles. Both ideas are very interesting