(Illustration) Solar Wind And Earth's Magnetic Field (IMAGE)

NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center

(Illustration) Solar Wind And Earth's Magnetic Field

Caption

(Not to scale.) The Sun expels a constant outflow of particles and magnetic fields known as the solar wind and vast clouds of hot plasma and radiation called coronal mass ejections. This solar material streams across space and strikes Earth's magnetosphere, the space occupied by Earth's magnetic field, which acts like a protective shield around the planet.

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NASA Goddard / Bailee DesRocher

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