A comet-shaped region surrounding the earth and other magnetic planets in which the charged particles of the solar wind are controlled by the planet's magnetic field rather than the sun's magnetic field. It extends for some 60 000 km on the side facing the sun but on the opposite side it extends to a much greater extent. The boundary of the magnetosphere is known as the magnetopause (see illustration). The magnetosphere of the earth includes the Van Allen belts.
Magnetosphere and magnetopause
- lambert
- Lambert's laws
- laminar flow
- laminated core
- Landau damping
- Landau ghost
- Landé interval rule
- Langevin equation
- Langmuir frequency
- Laplace equation
- Larmor precession
- laser
- laser printer
- latent heat
- lateral inversion
- lateral velocity
- latitude and longitude
- lattice
- lattice energy
- lattice gauge theory
- lattice vibrations
- latus rectum
- Laue, Max Theodor Felix von
- launch vehicle
- Lavoisier, Antoine Laurent