At altitudes below about 2,000 kilometres, the plasma is referred to as the ionosphere. Thousands of rocket probes have helped chart the vertical structure of this region of the atmosphere, and numerous satellites have provided latitudinal and longitudinal information. The ionosphere was discovered in the early 1900s when radio waves were found to propagate “over the horizon.” If radio waves have frequencies near or below the plasma frequency, they cannot propagate throughout the plasma of the ionosphere and thus do not escape into space; they are instead either reflected or absorbed. At night the absorption is low since little plasma exists at the height of roughly 100 kilometres where absorption is greatest. Thus, the ionosphere acts as an effective mirror, as does the Earth’s surface, and waves can be reflected around the entire planet much as in a waveguide. A great communications revolution was initiated by the wireless, which relied on radio waves to transmit audio signals. Development continues to this day with satellite systems that must propagate through the ionospheric plasma. In this case, the wave frequency must be higher than the highest plasma frequency in the ionosphere so that the waves will not be reflected away from the Earth.

The dominant ion in the upper atmosphere is atomic oxygen, while below about 200 kilometres molecular oxygen and nitric oxide are most prevalent. Meteor showers also provide large numbers of metallic atoms of elements such as iron, silicon, and magnesium, which become ionized in sunlight and last for long periods of time. These form vast ion clouds, which are responsible for much of the fading in and out of radio stations at night.

The lower atmosphere and surface of the Earth

A more normal type of cloud forms at the base of the Earth’s plasma blanket in the summer polar mesosphere regions. Located at an altitude of 85 kilometres, such a cloud is the highest on Earth and can be seen only when darkness has just set in on the planet. Hence, clouds of this kind have been called noctilucent clouds. They are thought to be composed of charged and possibly dusty ice crystals that form in the coldest portion of the atmosphere at a temperature of 120 K. This unusual medium has much in common with dusty plasmas in planetary rings and other cosmic systems. Noctilucent clouds have been increasing in frequency throughout the 20th century and may be a forerunner of global change.

High-energy particles also exist in the magnetosphere. At about 1.5 and 3.5 Earth radii from the centre of the planet, two regions contain high-energy particles. These regions are the Van Allen radiation belts, named after the American scientist James Van Allen, who discovered them using radiation detectors aboard early spacecraft. The charged particles in the belts are trapped in the mirror system formed by the Earth’s magnetic dipole field.

Plasma can exist briefly in the lowest regions of the Earth’s atmosphere. In a lightning stroke an oxygen-nitrogen plasma is heated at approximately 20,000 K with an ionization of about 20 percent, similar to that of a laboratory arc. Although the stroke is only a few centimetres thick and lasts only a fraction of a second, tremendous energies are dissipated. A lightning flash between the ground and a cloud, on the average, consists of four such strokes in rapid succession. At all times, lightning is occurring somewhere on the Earth, charging the surface negatively with respect to the ionosphere by roughly 200,000 volts, even far from the nearest thunderstorm. If lightning ceased everywhere for even one hour, the Earth would discharge. An associated phenomenon is ball lightning. There are authenticated reports of glowing, floating, stable balls of light several tens of centimetres in diameter occurring at times of intense electrical activity in the atmosphere. On contact with an object, these balls release large amounts of energy. Although lightning balls are probably plasmas, so far no adequate explanation of them has been given.

Considering the origins of plasma physics and the fact that the universe is little more than a vast sea of plasma, it is ironic that the only naturally occurring plasmas at the surface of the Earth besides lightning are those to be found in ordinary matter. The free electrons responsible for electrical conduction in a metal constitute a plasma. Ions are fixed in position at lattice points, and so plasma behaviour in metals is limited to such phenomena as plasma oscillations and electron cyclotron waves (called helicon waves) in which the electron component behaves separately from the ion component. In semiconductors, on the other hand, the current carriers are electrons and positive holes, the latter behaving in the material as free positive charges of finite mass. By proper preparation, the number of electrons and holes can be made approximately equal so that the full range of plasma behaviour can be observed.

Magnetic fields

The importance of magnetic fields in astrophysical phenomena has already been noted. It is believed that these fields are produced by self-generating dynamos, although the exact details are still not fully understood. In the case of the Earth, differential rotation in its liquid conducting core causes the external magnetic dipole field (manifest as the North and South poles). Cyclonic turbulence in the liquid, generated by heat conduction and Coriolis forces (apparent forces accompanying all rotating systems, including the heavenly bodies), generates the dipole field from these loops. Over geologic time, the Earth’s field occasionally becomes small and then changes direction, the North Pole becoming the South Pole and vice versa. During the times in which the magnetic field is small, cosmic rays can more easily reach the Earth’s surface and may affect life forms by increasing the rate at which genetic mutations occur.

Similar magnetic-field generation processes are believed to occur in both the Sun and the Milky Way Galaxy. In the Sun the circular internal magnetic field is made observable by lines of force apparently breaking the solar surface to form exposed loops; entry and departure points are what are observed as sunspots. Although the exterior magnetic field of the Earth is that of a dipole, this is further modified by currents in both the ionosphere and magnetosphere. Lunar and solar tides in the ionosphere lead to motions across the Earth’s field that produce currents, like a dynamo, that modify the initial field. The auroral oval current systems discussed earlier create even larger magnetic-field fluctuations. The intensity of these currents is modulated by the intensity of the solar wind, which also induces or produces other currents in the magnetosphere. Such currents taken together constitute the essence of a magnetic storm.