This NASA animation shows the sun blasting out a giant explosion of magnetic energy called a coronal mass ejection and the Earth being shielded from this by its powerful magnetic field. The sun also continuously showers the Earth with light and radiation energy. Much of this solar energy is deflected by the Earth's atmosphere or reflected back into space by clouds, ice and snow. What gets through becomes the energy that drives the Earth system, powering a remarkable planetary engine -- the climate.
The unevenness of this solar heating, the cycles of day and night, and our seasons are part of what cause wind currents to circulate around the word. These winds drive surface ocean currents and in this animation you can view these currents flowing off the coast of Florida.
This animation connects for the first time a series of computer models. The view of the sun and the Earth's magnetic field comes from the Luhmann-Friesen magnetic field model and two models that incorporated data from a real coronal mass ejection from the sun on December 2006.
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GeeSussFreeKWhat is particularly interesting, and new science to me is that the majority of the heat that keeps the core molten is just decay heat from Thorium, Uranium, and Potassium. Only 20% of the heat that drives the internal dynamo is believed to be primordial, most is from the decay of mainly these elements. This, coupled with our crust layer which forms a heat retaining blanket, has enabled the heat of our core to live much longer than otherwise. Predictions for core solidification without radioactive decay is on the order of a couple hundred million years. Every major thermodynamic system on the earth is powered via some form of nuclear; be it fission (well, decay, which isn't usually called fission) keeping the core molten, or fusion keeping the sun burning...we owe a lot to the strong and weak forces!
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