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Some of us talked about this in one of the mars threads just the other day. Creating an artificial magnetic field in orbit is far better and more feasible than fanciful ideas of re starting it at mars core.
I'm no scientist and I don't even play one on teebee,but wouldn't it be helpful if they figured out why the original magnetic field disappeared before they try to create another one?
Has anyone estimated how much energy the magnetic field generator would require?
I found this site where they calculated the energy to be in Earth's magnetic field to be 1026 ergs. A sizeable amount.http://ajp.dickinson.edu/Readers/Purcell/June1983-Problem1.pdf
Thank you for finding that. To build up the initial field on a planetary scale takes a lot of energy period.
That's about 3.17 Giga Watts of power continuously for a year (total energy).
And to put that in better perspective, Diablo Canyon nuclear power plant in California is capable is generating about 2.2 gigawatts of power. It would have to run continuously for 1.44 years to generate that amount of energy.
They believe they know why. The core of the planet cooled off and solidified so there is no longer an active generator to create the field. The circulating electrically conductive molten core is what originally generated the magnetic field. That is the theory anyway...
@DB Thanks,I didn't know that.My question now is "What can they do to reverse this so they aren't wasting their time trying to "push a boulder up a hill"?
I doubt it can be reversed short of changing the orbit of Mars by a few million miles
That's not so bad. For comparison google tells me NY City used 60 thousand gigawatt-hours last year.
@geronl Well,if they can't reverse whatever it was that caused Mars to lose it's magnetic field,they are wasting their time trying to create a new magnetic field.
Just build bigger domes. or any domes.
@geronl How would that reverse the effects of what is happening within the planet?Asking because I really don't know,not because I'm trying to be a smart-ass.
1 erg = 1.0E-7 WattSeconds. So wouldn't 10E26 ergs be 10E19 WattSeconds ?
Whatever happens, never ever allow an HOA on Mars!
I think we both slipped some decimal points... The original post was 1026 ergs which is 1E26 not 10E26... So 1E26 * 1E-7 / 31.54E6 = 317 Giga Watts for a year... Oh well...