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:

    Before the effect one believes in different causes than one does after the effect.
    Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900)

    It’s not that we have too much mother, but too little father. We can’t forgive our mothers for taking the place of our fathers until we are ready to see that the point of a man’s life is to be a father and a mentor, and we can’t do that because we don’t know how we would be a father or a mentor when we never had one.
    Frank Pittman (20th century)