Inhospitable Venus could be due to weak magntic field
17 October
2005
by Richard
Conan-Davies
|
Astronomers plan to analyse the magnetic field around Venus in a bid to discover whether the planet's lack of an internal magnetic field is the reason it is so inhospitable. The magnetic field will be meaured by a magnetometer on board the Venus express spacraft by a team from Imperial College London led by Chris Carr. It is thought that the field around Venus is very weak and so the solar wind from the sun tends to erode away parts of the atmosphere. Dr. Carr explained that even though the solar wind is travelling at such immense speeds, the Venus ionosphere still presents a significant 'magnetic barrier'. but Dr Carr asks How do these plasmas mix? How much energy is transferred from the Sun into the Venus atmosphere?" The mission hopes to answer these questions. Consistsing of two small sensors about 5cm by 5cm and weighing about 200g the magnetometer is mounted on the end of a metre-long deployable boom and the other sits directly on the spacecraft's body. Using two sensors means that stray magnetic fields produced by the spacecraft can be taken into account when the team is measuring Venus's magnetic field. |
 image: www.esa.int |
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Original press release from Imperial College London
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