A Giant Breach in Earth's Magnetic Field

From here.

Dec. 16, 2008: NASA's five THEMIS spacecraft have discovered a breach in Earth's magnetic field ten times larger than anything previously thought to exist. Solar wind can flow in through the opening to "load up" the magnetosphere for powerful geomagnetic storms. But the breach itself is not the biggest surprise. Researchers are even more amazed at the strange and unexpected way it forms, overturning long-held ideas of space physics.

"At first I didn't believe it," says THEMIS project scientist David Sibeck of the Goddard Space Flight Center. "This finding fundamentally alters our understanding of the solar wind-magnetosphere interaction."

The magnetosphere is a bubble of magnetism that surrounds Earth and protects us from solar wind. Exploring the bubble is a key goal of the THEMIS mission, launched in February 2007. The big discovery came on June 3, 2007, when the five probes serendipitously flew through the breach just as it was opening. Onboard sensors recorded a torrent of solar wind particles streaming into the magnetosphere, signaling an event of unexpected size and importance.

"The opening was huge—four times wider than Earth itself," says Wenhui Li, a space physicist at the University of New Hampshire who has been analyzing the data. Li's colleague Jimmy Raeder, also of New Hampshire, says "10²⁷ particles per second were flowing into the magnetosphere—that's a 1 followed by 27 zeros. This kind of influx is an order of magnitude greater than what we thought was possible."

The event began with little warning when a gentle gust of solar wind delivered a bundle of magnetic fields from the Sun to Earth. Like an octopus wrapping its tentacles around a big clam, solar magnetic fields draped themselves around the magnetosphere and cracked it open. The cracking was accomplished by means of a process called "magnetic reconnection." High above Earth's poles, solar and terrestrial magnetic fields linked up (reconnected) to form conduits for solar wind. Conduits over the Arctic and Antarctic quickly expanded; within minutes they overlapped over Earth's equator to create the biggest magnetic breach ever recorded by Earth-orbiting spacecraft.

The size of the breach took researchers by surprise. "We've seen things like this before," says Raeder, "but never on such a large scale. The entire day-side of the magnetosphere was open to the solar wind."

The circumstances were even more surprising. Space physicists have long believed that holes in Earth's magnetosphere open only in response to solar magnetic fields that point south. The great breach of June 2007, however, opened in response to a solar magnetic field that pointed north.

"To the lay person, this may sound like a quibble, but to a space physicist, it is almost seismic," says Sibeck. "When I tell my colleagues, most react with skepticism, as if I'm trying to convince them that the sun rises in the west."

Here is why they can't believe their ears: The solar wind presses against Earth's magnetosphere almost directly above the equator where our planet's magnetic field points north. Suppose a bundle of solar magnetism comes along, and it points north, too. The two fields should reinforce one another, strengthening Earth's magnetic defenses and slamming the door shut on the solar wind. In the language of space physics, a north-pointing solar magnetic field is called a "northern IMF" and it is synonymous with shields up!

"So, you can imagine our surprise when a northern IMF came along and shields went down instead," says Sibeck. "This completely overturns our understanding of things."

Northern IMF events don't actually trigger geomagnetic storms, notes Raeder, but they do set the stage for storms by loading the magnetosphere with plasma. A loaded magnetosphere is primed for auroras, power outages, and other disturbances that can result when, say, a CME (coronal mass ejection) hits.

The years ahead could be especially lively. Raeder explains: "We're entering Solar Cycle 24. For reasons not fully understood, CMEs in even-numbered solar cycles (like 24) tend to hit Earth with a leading edge that is magnetized north. Such a CME should open a breach and load the magnetosphere with plasma just before the storm gets underway. It's the perfect sequence for a really big event."

Sibeck agrees. "This could result in stronger geomagnetic storms than we have seen in many years."

Here is a link to the NASA Video -> click here.

Quest for the fountain of youth

The first man or woman who could live to be 150 may well be reading this. Longevity — for long a favourite subject of science fiction writers — is knocking on our doors. And since the frontiers of cutting edge tech are often the fantastical sci-fi pages, it’s not surprising that the claim should be made by Professor Gregory Benford, an award winning sci-fi writer and professor of physics and astronomy at the University of California, Irvine.

Benford’s California-based company Genescient is hot on the pursuit of the elixir of life: through a gene formula.

And it’s happening in our own backyards. Genescient’s first longevity product — to be ready for human trials later this year — will be tested at a laboratory in Bangalore. Genescient’s patent advisor also is an Indian.

The company uses directed evolution techniques — molecular biology methods that mimic natural evolution in laboratory conditions — to produce long-lived animals. The genomics of these animals are used to find critical pathways to longevity. “Using those, we find substances, some from traditional Indian medicine, interestingly, to devise pills to enhance the longevity pathways we already have. Those are our first products — arrived at by further testing on animals, to be sure they work and have no bad side effects,” he says.

Benford, one of the large fraternity seeking to expand human lifespan and enhance maturing years, was a panellist at a session on longevity at a conference on the big innovation trends held in November 2008. A co-panellist, anti-ageing expert Terry Grossman, announced to a full hall that the face-off was between ageing, a disease, and growing older as a natural process. “Ageing is not a natural disease. It’s possible to grow older without ageing,” Grossman, also a naturopath and homoeopath, maintained.

In India, too, there has been some sporadic yet commendable research. Madhu Sudan Kanungo, an emeritus professor at Banaras Hindu University, Varanasi, and Kalluri Subba Rao, now with Jawaharlal Nehru Technical University, Hyderabad, have been studying ageing from the seventies.

Much before the advent of sophisticated techniques, Kanungo’s team discovered how the production of certain critical proteins by genes begins to fall in the thirties. They have found that by arresting the decline of many of these proteins, vital for the functioning of the brain and maintaining hormone levels, lifespans can be extended.

Rao’s studies, which started nearly 35 years ago, underline how diminished DNA repair in the brain is linked to ageing. Unlike most other cells in the body, brain cells don’t undergo any division to create new ones. So repair is the only way to maintain a healthy brain, says he.

Hundreds of companies and one-person armies are engaged in the mission of searching for longevity and life enhancing solutions. Three years ago Stanford University started its own Longevity Centre “to improve the course of human ageing,” exploring the gamut from policy to commercial solutions. It isn’t just about cosmetic enhancement but disease prevention through active intervention.

Undeniably, lifespans have increased. According to data from the United Nations, the Japanese and Icelanders top the list of life expectancy with an average of 82 years. In contrast, Swaziland is 40 per cent below the world average with just 39 years.

India’s average life expectancy is 64.7 years but there is one community that outlives most others: Parsis, who live well into their 80s.

Their longevity with comparative mobility (with also a preponderance of ailments such as Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s) is the subject of a gene study that aims to break their secret of long life.

Avesthagen, a Bangalore-based biotech company, in partnership with some international companies, is studying the gene pool of the Parsis in its project Avestagenome. One aim is to find the molecular basis for longevity, says Dr Sami N. Guzder, head of the science and innovation division at Avesthagen.

“We are looking for biomarkers that could be used for diagnostics. Not everyone may have those distinct biomarkers,” he says. New biomarkers are constantly being discovered. But, Guzder cautions, the research is still in its early days — at least five years before any findings are put out for peer review.

Elsewhere too, companies are busy digging into the secrets of longevity.

Sirtris Pharmaceuticals, a part of GlaxoSmithKline now, exploits sirtuin enzymes believed to be connected to the ageing process. Resveratrol, found abundantly in red wine, is another example of a much-in-demand, commercially sold, naturally produced plant antibiotic that is said to have anti-ageing properties.

Benford’s company bought Methuselah fruit flies, which through selective breeding over 28 years resulted in a lifespan 4.5 times longer than normal. The fruit flies were created by evolutionary biologist Michael Rose who through lab work brought about mutation in their genes, causing them to live 35 per cent longer than the average fly. Flies have 75 per cent genes in common with humans.

Given the medical and scientific research there is no reason one shouldn’t live till 1,000 years, said another of the November conference speakers, Aubrey de Grey. He is chairman of the Methuselah Foundation, UK, which gives the Mprize for scientific research to produce the longest living mice. And Methuselah, as the Biblical story goes, lived for 969 years.

Some believe that immortality is round the corner. Grossman has co-authored a book called Fantastic Voyage: Live Long Enough to Live Forever with futurist Ray Kurzweil, on how medical advances, biotechnology and nanotechnology will deliver radical life extension, and within decades, discover immortality. Kurzweil, 60, takes 250 supplements a day and Grossman, 61, about 60. The idea is to be ready by the time artificial intelligence and nanotechnology deliver the holy grail of sweeping longevity.

“Thwarting ageing is a broad issue, beyond conventional medicine. Supplements to enhance our pathways that let some live longer are the crucial frontier,” says Benford, still youthful in his sixties.