As you know, the Earth has a gravitational field and is also surrounded by an electromagnetic field. These two fields are also involved in the formation of the atmosphere and life itself on the planet. With the development of astronautics, it became clear that the Earth has another previously unknown electric field, which was measured only recently. Without this field, everything on the planet could have turned out differently, including the appearance of man.
Photo from aboard the Endurance rocket. Image source: NASA
In 1968, spacecraft discovered supersonic flows of cold ions at the poles, leaving the atmosphere along the planet’s magnetic field lines. What served as an accelerator for these particles remained a mystery. Theorists called this field ambipolar because of the two effects of its application acting in different directions. Sunlight and ultraviolet radiation ionized atmospheric gas in the Earth’s ionosphere, stripping electrons from atoms and turning the nuclei into positive ions. Gravity should hold heavy particles, and light ones should fly into space under the influence of magnetic fields.
Thus, the ions seemed to pull electrons down, helping gravity, and the electrons rushed into space, creating an electromagnetic field vector opposite to the ion one – this is ambipolarity. At the same time, ions and electrons were attracted to each other. This subatomic process became the mechanism for the emergence of a planetary ambipolar field. In order to talk substantively about this phenomenon and begin to take into account the ambipolar field in a variety of models – from climate to planetary and evolutionary – it was necessary to measure its strength or potential. With specific numbers in hand, you can provide a fundamental basis for the phenomenon.
NASA specialists got to work. To measure the ambipolar field, a device was developed and a rocket was prepared for a suborbital launch. The mission was named Endurance after Sir Ernest Shackleton’s ship, which took part in the famous 1914 Antarctic expedition. The NASA rocket of the same name launched from the world’s northernmost spaceport on Spitsbergen on May 11, 2022. In 19 minutes of flight, the rocket reached an altitude of 768 km. The key measurement of the ambipolar field was made at an altitude of 518–768 km. The measured field potential was 0.55 V.
«Half a volt is almost nothing, it [the voltage] is about the same in value as a battery in a watch, NASA experts explain. “But this is exactly the quantity that explains the polar [ionic] wind.”
The measured amount of charge is enough for hydrogen ions to be attracted to it with a force 10.6 times higher than the Earth’s gravity. This is a real accelerator for light particles, which, like a cannon, constantly shoots them into space from both poles of the planet. It’s not just electrons that leave the earth—the ions also fly off into the distance. Oxygen ions, although much heavier than hydrogen ions, also feel the pressure of this wind.
Measurements from the Endurance mission showed that the ambipolar field increases the density of the ionosphere at high altitudes by 271% compared to the situation if there was no field at all. All this affects the climate, the composition of the atmosphere and, ultimately, the biosphere of the planet. Mars, Venus and other planets will not be an exception – their own ambipolar fields will also be discovered there someday. With concrete numbers in hand, you can begin to make new discoveries.