It is not quite a force field, but it provides protection to our planet.
It is known that humanity is capable of causing changes on our planet, even accidentally, which can lead to both good and not-so-good consequences. It turns out that humans can move huge radiation belts around our planet and turn them into a barrier without even realizing it, writes IFLScience.
The Earth's magnetic field acts as a shield against harmful cosmic rays and powerful solar winds made up of charged particles. These particles can reach our planet and then are directed towards the poles along the lines of the magnetic field. When they collide with the atmosphere, these particles cause the appearance of magnetic storms as well as auroras. The magnetic field also captures clouds of these particles in radiation belts around the Earth.
These radiation belts are also known as the Van Allen belts, and they were discovered in the 1950s. The shape of the radiation belts changes depending on the interaction between the Sun and the Earth, but they are often depicted as two ovals. There is a small stable belt at an altitude of 1,000 to 6,000 kilometers above the Earth's surface and a larger, less stable belt at an altitude of 13,000 to 60,000 kilometers.
NASA's mission called Van Allen Probes, consisting of two spacecraft, studied the Earth's radiation belts in incredible detail from 2012 to 2019. One of the discoveries was that, depending on the energy of the particles, the radiation belts look completely different, so the oval representation is at best limited. Another interesting finding was that humans have interfered with the operation of the belts without even realizing it.
One might think that satellites affect these belts since they are in space. But the radiation belts are actually influenced by radio waves in the very low frequency range used in radio communications. These radio waves can affect the movement and position of charged particles in space.
Research has shown that under certain conditions, radio signals in the very low frequency range can influence the properties of the high-energy radiation environment around the Earth.
Thus, these radio waves create a bubble around the Earth that repels charged particles, and its extent almost exactly corresponds to the inner edge of our planet's radiation belts. The Earth's inner radiation belt appears to have shifted further out compared to measurements from the early 1960s. This means that very low frequency radio waves could have pushed the radiation belt outward as this barrier was created.
The barrier around the Earth is not actually a force field, but it can reflect some of the cosmic radiation reaching our planet.
