Am 14.11.2012 00:00, schrieb Alain:

> A planetary magnetic field is not needed to protect life on the planet's
> surface, you only need a thick enough athmosphere.

Veto! A thick atmosphere means high pressure; high pressure means high 
temperature; high pressure plus high temperature means hell... see Venus.

> After all, if it was
> /realy/ needed to protect us from solar particles, those do hit us in
> the polar regions and would whipe out all life in those areas...

I'm not so sure about that. The solar particles come in from the side, 
where the magnetic field does deflect the particles. They end up in the 
Van Allen belts, where due to the shape of the magnetic field they are 
confined high above the atmosphere, traveling back and forth between the 
poles. AFAIK only a small portion of the particles does make it down to 
the atmosphere to create polar lights, and I'd assume they've already 
been slowed down a good deal by then.

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