Eden Rescue
Copyright© 2014 by Colin Barrett
Chapter 2
Like planets, stars rotate on their axes. Also like planets, they commonly generate magnetic fields, which control the direction and intensity of certain types of radiation they emit.
Mostly none of this is terribly important, inasmuch as in most celestial bodies the two nodes—the magnetic poles and the surface points of the axis—are widely separated. Earth's north magnetic pole, for example, lies beneath Canada's Hudson Bay, several hundred miles distant from the "true" (geophysical) north pole. Indeed, there's fossil evidence that at one point our world's magnetic polarization passed through what's now Africa's Sahara Desert.
Very occasionally, however, the two poles will coincide. That is, the "north" and "south" magnetic poles (actually positive and negative; electromagnetism isn't directional in the way of compass points) will happen to fall exactly where a celestial body's north and south rotational poles are to be found.
That's still pretty inconsequential when the body in question is a planet or a moon of a planet, etc. The existence of the magnetic field is what matters, the polarity is of little importance.
It's not even terribly meaningful when it comes to an ordinary star. After all, a star is no more than a planet grown so large that its own gravity is sufficient to crush the elements that make up its mass tightly enough to begin fusing their atoms, thereby "igniting" itself. In the ordinary course of events the coincidence of the two poles may have minor effects on its energy emissions, but not so significant as to warrant much notice.
Most of the life cycle of any star is spent in the fusion of hydrogen atoms into atoms of helium. As the star ages, though, the available hydrogen is gradually consumed, the star's size diminishes, pressure and hence temperatures rise, and it's now the helium atoms that are being fused together. With increasing rapidity the cycle runs to carbon, oxygen, silicon, each being produced by fusion of atoms of lighter elements, and finally to iron.
At this juncture the progression comes to an abrupt, and usually spectacular, halt. To this stage the process of atomic fusion has produced positive energy (albeit in ever-diminishing quantities). Iron, however, is so naturally dense that the fusion that creates it actually consumes more energy than it generates.
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