Magnetic Insights
Magnetic fields are a prevalent phenomenon on many planets and essential ingredients in sustain life as a protective shield from harmful cosmic radiations. The conventional dynamo theory that credits the rotation of the planets to the generation of such fields encounters numerous challenges in explaining their origins. The recently proposed superconducting hypothesis presents a fresh perspective for comprehending planetary magnetic fields and offers more compelling explanations for the observed phenomena.
According to the unified theory, superconductors are common, existing at high pressures and low temperatures. The hypothesis is that there is a central band of superconducting matter at the equatorial belt of the planet that was inducted with the Meissner’s effect from the Sun’s magnetic field.
In fact, the observations from Voyager 2 demonstrated significant offsets to the dipoles that are not supported by the classical dynamo theory. Based on the proposed hypothesis, the magnetic fields of Uranus and Neptune may have formed early with magnetic dipoles and the planet’s rotation axes aligned. As the planets cooled down, their superconductors were frozen inside them and later impacts from celestial objects altered the tilt and along with it the dipoles.
Magnetic field deviations of Uranus and Neptune measured by Voyager 2.
As we have already explored, momentum in the system can also be conserved through superconductors in the system that can store and release energy via the magnetic field. We should thus further expand our equation to conserve momentum to include the storage and release of energy through the magnetic field(s) within the system as
M x V1System x R1 = M x V2System x R2 + √ [2 x [∆ [VJupiter x T x t] + ∆ [-m x B]]
The hypothesis is that as the star system moves away from the binary star, energy is released by the superconductors enabling the system to maintain angular velocity and not slow down. Similarly, when the system moves closer to the binary star, energy is stored in the superconductors enabling the system to not speed up.
To explore this, we can look at the magnetic field strength of the planet Earth based on Dipole Moment using the paleomagnetic field models. Before we do so, we should set the time reference based on the sections of the arc as given by the table.
The Smoking Gun?
Figure Shows the reconstruction of the Earth’s Dipole Moment over the past 9,000 years. Reconstruction is based on different prior measurements of the Earth’s DM. The thin black lines show the 95% credible interval of the preferred pfm9k.2 (paleomagnetic field model) case. Image Credit: Nilsson et al. 2022.
We can observe from the graph that as we progress in the descending arc away from the binary star, in perfect alignment to the arc segment durations, the observed strength of Earth’s dipole is greater, potentially due to the release of stored magnetic energy in the superconductor belt. We can also observe that as the ascending arc started, the strength of the Dipole decreases indicating greater conservation of energy in the system. This trend is very much confirmatory of the hypothesis posited earlier to enable the star system to travel at a constant angular velocity across the elliptical orbit.
The change in strength of the magnetic fields is also a potential clue to help model the forces at play across the various sections of the arc. There is a 25% increase or an 80% decrease across each stage in the average strength of the field. Again, we have the pointers towards a piece-wise linear model across the arc segments.
The planets Earth, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune have active magnetic fields that can support the theory of storage and release of energy via superconducting bands. Jupiter again has by far the largest magnetic field measuring about 20,000 times that of Earth’s and is the largest object in our solar system. In fact, it is so large that if you could see Jupiter's magnetosphere from Earth, it would appear nearly three times the size of our moon.
Deeper exploration and understanding of the magnetosphere of Jupiter will help us better understand the forces at play and its relative quantification. Clearly, both in managing Torque and the Magnetic energy of the system over time, Jupiter plays the most vital role.