Something beneath the surface is changing Earth’s protective magnetic field, which may leave satellites and other space assets vulnerable to high-energy radiation.
The gradual weakening of the overall magnetic field can take hundreds and even thousands of years. But smaller, more rapid fluctuations within months may leave satellites unprotected and catch scientists off guard, new research finds.
A new model uses satellite data from the past nine years to show how sudden fluid motions within the Earth’s core can alter the magnetic envelope around our planet. This represents the first time that researchers have been able to detect such rapid magnetic field changes taking place over just a few months.
“There are these changes in the South Atlantic, an area where the magnetic field has the smallest envelope at one third [of what is] normal,” said Mioara Mandea, a geophysicist at the GFZ German Research Center for Geosciences in Potsdam, Germany.
Even before the newly detected changes, the South Atlantic Anomaly represented a weak spot in the magnetic field — a dent in Earth’s protective bubble.
The Earth’s magnetic field extends about 36,000 miles (58,000 km) into space, generated from the spinning effect of the electrically-conductive core that acts something like a giant electromagnet. The field creates a tear-drop shaped bubble that has constantly shielded life on Earth against much of the high-energy radiation flowing from the sun.
The last major change in the field took place some 780,000 years ago during a magnetic reversal, although such reversals seem to occur more often on average. A flip in the north and south poles typically involves a weakening in the magnetic field, followed by a period of rapid recovery and reorganization of opposite polarity.
Full Article: Live Science
This is interesting to see how dependent we are on the magnetic field that we go about our day without even feeling its direct affect. Hopefully as we learn more about Earth’s magnetic field we can create a plan to protect the satellites that we depend on heavily day in and day out. If they were to be taken out by solar storms we might be in some very deep trouble.
