[ExI] A Geophysics problem

[BillK]

On 30 September 2015 at 14:15, Anders Sandberg  wrote:
> The solar wind has a few atoms per cubic centimeter,
> http://hypertextbook.com/facts/2005/RandyAbbas.shtml
> giving me a rough estimate of about 10^-17 kg/m^3.
>
> The volume out to synchronous orbit is 4*pi*(42164e3)^3/3=3*10^23 m^3, so
> the total mass is about 3 million tons. So 2 million tons is actually
> significant... if it was an instantaneous release.
>
> But note that the solar wind is moving: the slow solar wind is moving about
> 400 km/s (and has twice the density as the fast), so over a year a mass of
> pi*(42164e3)^2 * 400e3 * (3600*24*365.24) * 1e-17 = 705 billion kg is moving
> past the geosynchronous orbit.
>
> The hydrogen "pollution" is hence neglible...
>
> ...unless funky interactions with the magnetosphere happens. Now, that can
> be complex because of the different locations involved. Keith's scheme would
> deposit hydrogen across the plasma sphere, van Allen belts, magnetotail and
> other structures. As a general rule the protons would tend to spiral along
> the field lines, wobbling north and south if they get trapped. I would not
> expect it to do much more than a slight increase of solar activity would do,
> but maybe if the exhaust has just the right energy to get some resonance
> they might build up, cause auroras or do something else nonlinear.
>
> So I would suggest talking to somebody doing space weather or aurora
> physics.
>

Not something I know anything about, but........    :)

Do you need to allow for the orbital speed of the earth (30 km/s)
ploughing through the solar wind?

Isn't LEO up to GSO within the magnetosphere?
So the solar wind effect will be reduced before it hits Keith's hydrogen?

BillK