Would the path of a tiny asteroid be altered (even slightly) by the earth's Van Allen Belt?

Question

(If they wander within the field)
Don't them asteroids have small magnetic fields?

Answer 1

Not necessary so . The Moon is our meteor deflector. Objects coming from far off will sum the gravity from the earth with the moon. If the moon is in the right position it could cause the object to miss us.

Answer 2

No asteroid has a magnetic field. But the Earth does, and some asteroids are iron, which is effected by magnetic fields, so I suppose it is possible that some extremely small alteration could take place. Earth's field is not very strong though, so the effect would be really small.

By the way, the Van Allen belts are not the same thing as the magnetic field. The belts are zones of charged particles caught in part of the magnetic field.

Answer 3

The Van Allen Radiation Belt is a torus of energetic charged particles (plasma) around Earth, held in place by Earth's magnetic field. The Van Allen belts are closely related to the polar aurora where particles strike the upper atmosphere and fluoresce.

The presence of a radiation belt had been proposed by Nicholas Christofilos [1] prior to the Space Age and was confirmed by the Explorer I on January 31, 1958, and Explorer III missions, under Dr.James Van Allen at the University of Iowa. The trapped radiation was first mapped out by Sputnik 3, Explorer IV, Pioneer III and Luna 1.

Energetic electrons form two distinct radiation belts, while protons form a single belt. Within these belts are particles capable of penetrating about 1 g/cm2 [2] of shielding (e.g., 1 millimetre of lead).

The term Van Allen Belts refers specifically to the radiation belts surrounding Earth; however, similar radiation belts have been discovered around other planets. The Sun does not support long-term radiation belts. The Earth's atmosphere limits the belts' particles to regions above 200-1000 km,[3] while the belts do not extend past 7 Earth radii RE.[3] The belts are confined to an area which extends about 65°[3] from the celestial equator.

An upcoming NASA mission, Radiation Belt Storm Probes will go further and gain scientific understanding (to the point of predictability) of how populations of relativistic electrons and ions in space form or change in response to changes in solar activity and the solar wind.
Therefore I do believe so. Have a good day.

Answer 4

It depends what you mean by "tiny" and "altered"

Some (a minority) of asteroids contain ferromagnetic elements (iron, nickel) and, as such, can be induced magnets: being in a magnetic field will turn them into temporary magnets. Interaction with Earth's magnetic field may have a "measurable" effect but it is going to be extremely weak. The force will be proportional to the ferromagnetic content but the deflection will be inversely proportional to the total mass (and proportional to the square of the speed)

If you make the asteroid small enough for the total mass to be of little consequence (e.g., a fleck of iron the size of a dust grain, for example), then it is more likely to be "whacked" by the occasional high energy protons from the solar wind or the occasional air molecule from Earth that do escape to such altitudes. If it does make it to the Van Allen belts, then any of the high energy particles trapped there could "whallop" it back into space.

Even smaller and the thing could be bounced around by mere photons!

The Earth's magnetic field is rather weak (on a small scale) and any fridge magnet will generate a much greater field in its immediate vicinity. Because the fridge magnet is small, the magnetic flux diminishes rapidly as you move away from it (a few metres are enough, sometimes) while the Earth's magnet, despite being weak, is very large so that it can still be felt that far away (hundreds of km above Earth's surface).

Mind you, "asteroids" that small don't scare us. Anything big enough to survive the atmosphere and reach the surface will not be deflected by the van Allen belts (well OK, it could fall a meter to the left of where it should have fallen).

Anything big enough to do damage will not even notice that there was such a thing as a van Allen belt...


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Actually, to be called an asteroid, the object must be big enough. The fleck of iron dust that we used in our example would never be called an asteroid. For things that come towards Earth, an object must measure at least 50 metres (165 ft) to be called an asteroid.

In that case, if it has a magnetic field (unlikely, in general) and it happens to be oriented to provide it with maximum deflection, then, maybe, one could measure the fraction of millimetre that it would be deflected.

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In a way, Campbelp2002 is correct.

Earth's magnetic field extends forever (equations for magnetic force use distance squared in the denominator), or in practice, until they are swamped by a stronger field -- like the Sun's, for example. Still, that is much further out than the Van Allen belts.

The van Allen belts are regions within our magnetic field where charged particles are trapped by our magnetic field and are put on quasi-stable electromagnetic "orbits". The orbits are maintained because a moving charged particle is the same as a current, and currents are affected by magnetic fields (and vice-versa). The charged particle is stuck with having to stay on "orbits" spiralling around the lines of flux of the magnetic field (until they spill into the upper atmosphere as aurorae).

Answer 5

Yes, but not to any obvious amount. The Van Allen belts have a reputation for being some big bad ombre out to get you and your dog. Similar to Auoras and Cosmic rays, these are just natural processes of activity in space. If comets have been affected I'm convinced they have had much change of course through the earths gravity much more than the belt could ever do.

Answer 6

There is a greater risk of the earth's gravity to alter the path of any asteroid than earth's magnetic field,