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Solar Flare

Don't start running around like your pilus's on fire, only this might actually matter. The Earth'southward magnetic field is so discombobulated over South Africa that some scientists believe we're seeing the opening strains of a planet-wide polarity modify.

What take scientists observed?

We already knew that the poles of the Earth's magnetic field sometimes reverse, which is to say their direction flips from herding particles in to shooing them out, or vice versa. And the Earth's magnetic field isn't perfectly fifty-fifty, either. It's sort of lumpy and sparse in places. This is because the innards of our planet aren't perfectly evenly distributed. There's i detail region of the planet, toward the South Pole, where the liquid fe core meets with a hot, dense patch of the mantle. Studies of the planet'south magnetic field bear witness that its poles are reversed over that patch.

Michael Osadicw/John Tarduno, CC Past-ND

Above information technology, that ferromagnetic weirdness results in an overlapping region of weirdness in the planet's magnetic field called the S Atlantic Anomaly. The protective Van Allen belts there get really weird; they fade in intensity, and they dip way down close to the surface.

That region poses an annoying, but well understood problem for space travel and satellites. Hubble doesn't have observations when it's orbiting in a higher place the Anomaly. There's a study that in 2022, SpaceX'southward Dragon spacecraft experienced magnetic interference from the Anomaly and had to reboot systems as a result. The Anomaly may even be responsible for how Hitomi spun itself apart.

Why is all this happening? What'southward perturbing the magnetic field? The core is liquid, information technology's moving inside the planet, and information technology changes the contours of the magnetosphere forth with it. Earth's magnetic field has been weakening sharply over the last 160 years, right over the South Atlantic Bibelot.

Prove from fired clay from Bantu-speaking civilizations some 5,000 years ago tells united states that the planet's magnetic field was interim just similar this, right at that place over S Africa, back so. Modeling tells the states that this magnetic behavior preceded a planetary-scale flip in geomagnetic alignment that would have resulted in extreme electromagnetic strangeness on the surface. Basically, the Anomaly got big enough that it took over, and flipped the entire planet'south poles within out.

NASA's simulation of what Earth's magnetic fields might look like during a geomagnetic reversal

NASA's simulation of what World'south magnetic fields might await like during a geomagnetic reversal. Yikes.

What does a geomagnetic pole reversal mean for u.s.?

This isn't going to be one of those end-of-the-world articles. That said, if the poles practice flip, we could be in for some electromagnetically interesting times. Magnetic fields deflect electrons, which would change how electricity behaves on a subtle level. The inconsistencies in the planet's magnetosphere could kneecap satellite observations and human activity like a poltergeist in computerized systems.

"Such a major modify would affect our navigation systems," according to two geophysicists from the University of Rochester, "as well every bit the transmission of electricity. The spectacle of the northern lights might appear at dissimilar latitudes. And considering more than radiation would reach Globe's surface under very low field strengths during a global reversal, information technology also might affect rates of cancer."

Tin foil is electrically conductive, though, and then brand sure yous keep your head well grounded. If you shape the foil right, it'll act similar a Faraday cage around your skull and keep the polarity switch from frying your brain.