Book 21, Question 65
What Would Life Be Like If Earth’s Shield Vanished?
Imagine waking up one morning, and Earth's magnetic shield was gone. What would happen to life on Earth? Let's think it through, step by step, like real scientists do.
More fun facts
- Mars has no global magnetic field to shield it like Earth's.
- NASA's MAVEN spacecraft found that the solar wind and radiation stripped away most of Mars' atmosphere.
- That loss helped turn Mars from a planet that might have supported life into a frigid desert.
- About 65 percent of the argon that was ever in the Martian atmosphere has been lost to space.
- The solar wind is a thin stream of electrically conducting gas that blows constantly from the Sun.
- The early Sun had stronger ultraviolet light and solar wind, so Mars lost even more air long ago.
Sources: NASA
Questions kids ask
What happened to Mars' atmosphere?
The solar wind and radiation stripped most of it away over billions of years.