Radiation on Pandora?

[redpaintednavi]

One can wonder if Polyphemus has a magnet field like Jupiter or Saturn and if these field causes radiation when bombarded by particles from the sun? If so, would that not affect Pandora? I mean Jupiters radiation causes erosion on Io and Saturns radiation splits water molecules on Rhea. So one can wonder how strong a magnetic field Pandora must have to be protected from hard radiation? Otherwise its life would perhaps be barbequed and its athmosphere blown out in the space.

And how about the fields of magnetism in the Hallelujah mountains? Would it not disrupt living organisms?

[Dreaming Of Pandora]

Io and Rhea have very tenuous atmospheres and weak to no magnetic fields of their own. Pandora has has a thick atmosphere and an extremely powerful magnetic field due to the presence of unobtanium -- stronger than Earth's. Pandora's magnetic field should be more than sufficient to deflect the cosmic rays concentrated by Polyphemus.

[Human No More]

It's in the background that yes, Pandora has a very strong magnetic field (part of the reason for the interference with some technology) but IIRC, background radiation is slightly higher than Earth's and organisms on Pandora are more resistant to radiation than Earth ones.

The magnetic field wouldn't disrupt organisms because they aren't ferromagnetic

[redpaintednavi]

Originally Posted by Human No More

The magnetic field wouldn't disrupt organisms because they aren't ferromagnetic

Some people claim that they are sensitive to magnetic fields.

Also some organisms seem to navigate with the help of magnetic fields.

And if one stuffs the statocyst of a crayfish with iron particles one can trick the animal to turn upside down by holding a magnet over its head

[Human No More]

Some people also claim that they can move objects with their mind or that the world will end in 2012
There's no evidence magnetic fields have any adverse effects, just ask someone who's had an MRI scan (and doesn't have any ferromagnetic implants ), who has been exposed to anything up to ~40,000 gauss where Earth's magnetic field is 0.3-0.6 gauss

[tm20]

there are electrical storms on Pandora which can kill you because of the radiation.

[Fosus]

It's a hole in the story kinda.. Cameron himself said that such strong magnet fields exist (keeping the Halleluja mountains up there for example) but also said that he had asked a scientist or something who said that magnetic fields that strong would rip the hemoclobin out of your blood.

[Dreaming Of Pandora]

Originally Posted by Fosus

but also said that he had asked a scientist or something who said that magnetic fields that strong would rip the hemoclobin out of your blood.

Hemoglobin isn't magnetically attractive, it's repulsive. Also I don't think the tiny amounts of iron would amount to a large enough attraction to be ripped out of the human body. MRI scans use 30'000 gauss of magnetism while the Earth's magnetic field strength is only 0.5, and more surprisingly Jupiter is only 4.3 gauss at its equator. Polyphemus is smaller than Jupiter so it probably has 3.5 - 4 gauss and Pandora should at max 100 gauss, far lower than 30'000, and no patient has suffered from iron being ripped out of their bodies at 30'000 gauss.

[Sothis]

Originally Posted by Dreaming Of Pandora

Hemoglobin isn't magnetically attractive, it's repulsive. Also I don't think the tiny amounts of iron would amount to a large enough attraction to be ripped out of the human body. MRI scans use 30'000 gauss of magnetism while the Earth's magnetic field strength is only 0.5, and more surprisingly Jupiter is only 4.3 gauss at its equator. Polyphemus is smaller than Jupiter so it probably has 3.5 - 4 gauss and Pandora should at max 100 gauss, far lower than 30'000, and no patient has suffered from iron being ripped out of their bodies at 30'000 gauss.

Well said.

Perhaps the expert who made the hemoglobin comment didn't realize that the mountains are made of superconducting material. A hypothetical room-temperature superconductor could float in a relatively weak magnetic field. If, instead, those huge mountains were floating using a mechanism equivalent to our current-day Maglev trains... THAT would be a different story.

[Human No More]

Exactly.
Anyone who said haemoglobin is magnetic has very little understanding of it and just knows 'well, it contains iron'.

Yes, the mountains float due to the effects of magnetic fields on superconductors, but even if they DID float ferromagnetically, then the magnetic field would need to be a lot stronger than it already is, but still nowhere near as strong as artificial fields humans are regularly exposed to with no problems.