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Farther still from Earth, at about 10 Re along the Earth–Sun line, is yet another current system that affects the surface field and profoundly changes the nature of Earth’s field in space. This system is called the magnetopause current, or Chapman-Ferraro current system for the English physicist Sydney Chapman and his student V.C.A. Ferraro, who first suggested its existence. It flows in a single sheet and forms a boundary between the magnetic fields of Earth and solar wind. When solar wind particles encounter Earth’s field, they are bent from their paths by the Lorentz force. As noted above, protons gyrate ...(100 of 14820 words)