Outer Core - Effect On Life

Effect On Life

Without the outer core, life on Earth would be very different. Convection of liquid metals in the outer core creates the Earth's magnetic field. This magnetic field extends outward from the Earth for several thousand kilometers, and creates a protective bubble around the Earth that deflects the solar wind. Without this field, a larger proportion of the solar wind would directly strike the Earth's atmosphere. The presumed effect would be to strip the Earth's atmosphere away slowly. This is hypothesized to have happened to the Martian atmosphere, rendering the planet effectively lifeless.

Read more about this topic:  Outer Core

Famous quotes containing the words effect and/or life:

    “Cause and effect are two sides of one fact.”
    —Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)

    “All my life I have lived and behaved very much like [the] sandpiper—just running down the edges of different countries and continents, “looking for something” ... having spent most of my life timorously seeking for subsistence along the coastlines of the world.”
    —Elizabeth Bishop (1911–1979)