Exoplanet Magnetopause Standoff Distance

Every magnetized planet holds the stellar wind at bay by balancing its dipole magnetic pressure against the wind's incoming ram pressure — the boundary where the two forces match is the magnetopause. This simulator renders a planet's dipole field lines and an incoming stream of stellar-wind particles that deflect around the computed magnetopause surface, solved live from the real Chapman-Ferraro pressure-balance relation. Move the planet closer to its star, weaken its magnetic moment, or crank up stellar activity and watch the magnetosphere compress — sometimes collapsing onto the surface itself, the scenario thought to strip atmospheres from close-in exoplanets with weak intrinsic fields.