When Nikola Tesla spoke of invisible energies permeating our world, many considered him a visionary. Today, science does him justice: the electric field that surrounds the Earth has finally been detected and measured, with the results (I link them to you here) published in the journal Nature. And the discovery opens the door to a new era in understanding our planet.
An invisible field is revealed
For decades, the Earth's electric field has remained in the shadows, eluding our instruments and our understanding. Yet even without counting the work of Nikola Tesla, its presence had been hypothesized even in the 60s. Like an elusive ghost, it has danced on the edge of our knowledge, challenging scientists to capture it.
“Any planet with an atmosphere should have an ambipolar field,” explains the astronomer Glyn Collinson of NASA’s Goddard Space Center. “Now that we’ve finally measured it, we can begin to understand how it has shaped our planet and others over time.”
But what exactly is this electric field? Imagine a very thin, invisible veil enveloping our planet, a force that plays a crucial role in the interaction between the Earth and the space around it.
Earth: A Cosmic Work of Art
Our planet is not a simple lump of rock floating in space. It is a cosmic work of art, an intricate set of fields and forces dancing in delicate balance. We have the gravitational field, which keeps us grounded (literally). There is the magnetic field, our shield against solar storms. And now, finally, comes the electric field.
This new player on the planetary scene is no mere extra. It is an agent of chaos, as Collinson calls it. It defies gravity and tears particles from the atmosphere, launching them into space. It is as if the Earth had an electric breath, and exhaled particles into the cosmos.
Earth's Electric Field: The Hunt for an Invisible Treasure
To capture this elusive force, scientists had to think outside the box. The Endurance mission, launched in May 2022, was designed with a single purpose: to hunt for this “great invisible”.
The result? A change in electric potential of just 0,55 volts. You might be thinking, “Is that it?” Often the devil (or perhaps the angel) is in the details. This tiny difference in potential is enough to explain phenomena that have puzzled us for decades, such as the supersonic polar wind that blows from the Earth’s poles.
A miniature universe
The Earth's electric field, or ambipolar field, is born in the ionosphere, at about 250 kilometers altitude. Here, ultraviolet and solar radiation ionizes atmospheric atoms, creating a ballet of charged particles. The electrons, light and lively, try to escape into space. The ions, heavier and more composed, tend to fall downwards.
The result? An electric field that tries to maintain order in this chaos of charges. It's as if the Earth has created its own little miniature universe, with forces pulling in opposite directions, creating a dynamic and fascinating balance.
Earth's Electric Field, the Implications: A New Chapter in Earth's History
The discovery of the Earth's electric field is not just a point of arrival, but a new beginning. It opens up fascinating questions about the history of our planet and its future. How did it influence the evolution of the Earth's atmosphere? What role did it play in the development of life on Earth?
And that's not all. This discovery could have implications for our understanding of other planets. If every planet with an atmosphere has an ambipolar field, what could this tell us about worlds beyond our solar system?
A tribute to Tesla
In all this, returning to the beginning of this article, we cannot help but think of Nikola Tesla. The Serbian genius, with his almost prophetic vision, had intuited the existence of invisible energies that permeate our world. The discovery of the Earth's electric field is, in a certain sense, a posthumous tribute to his intuition.
Tesla spoke of a “planetary nervous system.” Today, with the discovery of the Earth’s electric field, we can begin to understand what he meant. The Earth is not just a celestial body, but a living, breathing organism, with energy fields that interact in complex and fascinating ways.
Measuring the Earth’s electric field is just the beginning. As Collinson says, “This field is a fundamental part of how the Earth works. And now that we’ve finally measured it, we can start asking some of these bigger, more exciting questions.”
What more will we discover about our planet? What other invisible forces influence our existence without our realizing it? The Earth’s electric field reminds us that, even after millennia of observation and study, the Earth still has secrets to reveal. And perhaps, just like Tesla, we should look beyond what is visible to truly understand the world around us.
