Earth's magnetic field.
What does this switch do..
"Earth's Magnetic Field Offline"
- Tinfoil hat and shades in the pocket.
Astroboffins are warning that a mighty "eruption" of superhot plasma has been blasted out of the Sun directly at the Earth. The plasma cloud is expected to reach Earth beginning tomorrow today, possibly causing strange phenomena - including a mighty geomagnetic storm which could see the Northern Lights aurorae extend as far …
"a huge solar pimple so large as to be visible without the aid of a telescope."
Well, I tried to look, but couldn't see anything that looked like a pimple. So I used my binoculars. Now I can't see anything at all. Bloody great bit of advice, that.
Mine's the one with the Braille keyboard in the pocket....
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this'll end up being start of world war Z once that there solanum causes the dead to rise
i'm off home to sharpen my machete and make sure my 'bug out bag' is fully packed,
then chuck some diesel in the car and drive off to castel caerfilthy
oh and cwtch the kids before we're all eaten alive
fucking zombies!
You are too generous, sir. I was rather fed up with the human race getting wiped out every time this happened, and it's well past time the government did something about it.
Why, I have letters written by my grandfather to The Times over 70 years ago on this very matter, and it's taken until now to remedy the matter? It doesn't bear thinking about the number of times life on Earth has been eradicated, whilst the fat cats in government have been sitting on their fat behinds doing nothing. For shame!
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Where to start with what's wrong in that film, from a technical and/or scientific point of view.
The geomagnetic field has been known to periodically invert itself; the record of this in the orientation of magnetic fields in igneous rocks provided evidence for plate tectonics. It is thought to be a fairly slow process (taking perhaps thousands of years), the lack of mass extinctions corresponding to magetic field inversions would seem to suggest that it isn't ever actually zero at all over this time. More likely, it changes direction, or becomes chaotic beofre stabilising again with the opposite orientation.
Note also, that the sun itself flips its magnetic field much more often, giving rise to the approximately 13 year solar cycle; this leads to the 'termination shock' where the sun's magnetic field meets the interstellar magnetic field at a distance varying somewhat between around 75 to 90 AU. This is known as the heliopause, is analogous the the Earth's magnetopause and protects the solar system to a certain extent from cosmic radiation in the same way as the manetopause protects us from solar radiation. Therefore, in the event of an inversion of the Earth's magnetic field, we would expect the magnetic bubble around the Earth to shrink somewhat but to carry on protecting us.
The keys to watching The Core are 1) alcohol 2) not taking
it seriously and 3) predicting what will obviously happen.
Yes, it's completely unscientific and predictable, but thats
the point. It's very clear from watching it that the writers
know that it's completely un-scientific and decided to ham
it up to annoy pedants anyway.
At least, that's the opinion of quite a few geomagneticians (if there isn't such a word, there is now!) Certainly the magnetic poles are wandering rather drunkenly around the polar regions, which may or may not be typical behaviour.
But, as LC points out, nothing to lie awake at night worrying about. BTW the solar cycle is just under 11 years - 21 years if you allow for the need to go from N/S to S/N orientation and then back again. But, as the latest cycle demonstrates, it's not quite as regular as it might be.
"Certainly the magnetic poles are wandering rather drunkenly around the polar regions, which may or may not be typical behaviour."
Are we sure that this isn't something to do with human activity? Too many Hummers in the Northern Hemisphere perhaps?
Come to think of it, maybe there is a research grant or two on offer. People have a right to know!
He might not have been just north of Aberystwyth at the time, but I certainly was - was during either the second or third year of my first degree (studying planetary physics, no less)
It's *very* rare to see aurora that far south, and fairly rare in the UK as a whole, although I've often seen 'airglow' (aurora's little brother) in the far North of Scotland.
I took some long-exposure photographs which, if I recall, came out quite well. Wonder if I've still got them ...
but (@lawndart) in the midlands. Wouildn't call it spectacular as such. More odd. Started as a glowing cloud low on the horizon which slowly spread to be a soft glowing cloud-ribbon all round and just above the horizon. Later streaks from this developed up towards the centre of the sky above where a sharp-edged 'break' shape developed.
No fast movement, took hours, all very slow, no particular colours, just glows, clouds, streaks. It was confirmed next day on the news as an aurora.
Me too,
Driving north up the new M24 about 30 miles past the border, circa 1990ish. About the middle of June at about 3ish in the morning. Huge, amazing, colossal green curtains in the sky, shimmering and flickering. Utterly awesome. I dug my ex-wife, who was asleep in the passenger seat, in the ribs, and mentioned the fact.
"Oooh, what's that?". Bloody network specialists!!
I also saw them around 20 years ago, somewhere between '88 and '90 at a guess. Down south, in Hampshire. Probably around 9-10pm and it was dark so not in the summer. Big curtains and rays of purest green. Very impressive. Have been planning to make a trip somewhere likely to see them again, but am now hoping if I procrastinate long enough they'll come to me instead!
Steve.