Submitted by Nihilblistic t3_z2p0pk in askscience

I was just wondering if you'd have to take account of planetary magnetic fields when designing and building for different planets. Do electric motors work at different efficiencies on Mars? Are radios less reliable on Jupiter's moons? Does power transmission have to be handled differently on moon without a magnetosphere versus a planet?

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fliguana t1_ixk6cg3 wrote

The Earth has a relatively strong magnetic field, but electric motors don't come with instructions to orient them in a specific way.

Some large rear projection TVs used to be sensitive to orientation, it's one example of interference that comes to mind.

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JonJackjon t1_ixk86h6 wrote

No. The effect of the earths magnetic field is so small compared to any normal sized mechanism that it would be imperceivable. Consider the force that makes a mechanical compass point "north". That very small force would pale in comparison to any power transmission forces.

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bkinstle t1_ixkns5z wrote

They did on CRT tubes. When I worked at Apple we had a big enclosure made of coils with a wooden desk in the middle. There was a map on the wall of the earth and you could pick any location, read the parameters from the chart and type them into a control panel to filter the Earth's magnetic field in that location inside the chamber.

When we still made CRT monitors they were calibrated for certain geographic regions and we tested that calibration in this machine. There was always a push to make fewer monitor calibrations but the best we ever got to was northern and southern hemisphere models

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abaxeron t1_ixlu1o8 wrote

A current-based electric machine (say, a simple resistive heater or a stove) stationed on a planet with static magnetic field will work no different than it does on Earth; if the magnetic field is not moving, it's not inducing any currents.

Then things get weird. There's Hall effect that forces charges moving across a perpendicular magnetic field to stick to one side of the wire and away from the other (which, in practical sense, will mean that a planet with ultra-strong magnetic field will cause non-vertical wires to rust more quickly on one side).

Ferrite based generators (sometimes encountered in very old electric toys and roller blades / scooters with shiny LED lights) will stop working as intended at magnetic fields roughly ten thousand times stronger than Earth's, since such magnetic field will keep the rotor perpetually saturated in one and the same direction. 4 more times, and motors, generators, and high permeability iron alloys stop working for the same reason. Fast-moving vehicles will experience current being induced on their hull due to effects of homopolar generation (even if they move through relatively homogeneous magnetic field).

Specifically speaking of Jupiter, there's "Radio Jove" - emitted radio waves in the range of around 100 MHz that can be caught and listened to on simple household radio. Considering that these radio waves are detectable from Earth, they are insanely stronger at the source which is at least 588 million kilometers away (at Io's orbit, these radio waves will be 2 million times stronger). 100 MHz radio interference is perfectly capable of causing trouble here on Earth and will induce current on any luckily oriented straight wire around 3/4 meters long (at very short and very long lengths, induction will either be negligible, or destructively interfere with itself).

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Nihilblistic OP t1_ixlyins wrote

Thank you so very much for your post, it put me on the track I wanted to be on, namely looking on the effects of eddy currents on spacecraft, which has been a fascinating read.

What I am getting from it though that given a rotating orbiting object, depending on the strength of the magnetic field, you'd find stuff like rotation dampening, resistive torque, and Joule heating in conductive materials, with minor but non-negligible impact.

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