As Earth's magnetic shield fails, so do its satellites. First, our communications satellites in the highest orbits go down. Next, astronauts in low-Earth orbit can no longer phone home. And finally, cosmic rays start to bombard ...
Space Exploration
Dec 7, 2018
13
2739
41,000 years ago, a complete and rapid reversal of the geomagnetic field occured. Magnetic studies of the GFZ German Research Centre for Geosciences on sediment cores from the Black Sea show that during this period, during ...
Earth Sciences
Oct 16, 2012
11
40
(PhysOrg.com) -- The Earth's magnetic poles flip around every 200,000 years or so, with north becoming south and vice versa. Normally, the process takes 4-5,000 years and it ought to be impossible for the flip to be much ...
A study of the most recent near-reversals of the Earth's magnetic field by an international team of researchers, including the University of Liverpool, has found it is unlikely that such an event will take place anytime soon.
Earth Sciences
Apr 30, 2018
18
842
The sun has entered its 25th solar cycle and is about to wake up. For the last few years our star has been pretty sleepy, with few sunspots, bright flares or massive ejections of magnetized plasma emanating from its surface. ...
Astronomy
Oct 30, 2020
1
557
The sun's violent activity and many unexpected and unpredictable events taking place on its surface suggest that we should prepare for the worst. Huge explosions of magnetic field and plasma from the sun's corona, known as ...
Space Exploration
Mar 14, 2016
0
43
The Earth's core consists mostly of a huge ball of liquid metal lying at 3000 km beneath its surface, surrounded by a mantle of hot rock. Notably, at such great depths, both the core and mantle are subject to extremely high ...
Earth Sciences
Feb 22, 2017
4
398
Scientists have identified patterns in the Earth's magnetic field that evolve on the order of 1,000 years, providing new insight into how the field works and adding a measure of predictability to changes in the field not ...
Earth Sciences
Jul 7, 2017
3
552
The sky erupts. Cities darken, food spoils and homes fall silent. Civilization collapses. End-of-the-world novel? A video game? Or could such a scenario loom in America's future? There is talk of catastrophe ahead, depending ...
Other
Nov 6, 2010
7
0
New findings based on a year's worth of observations from NASA's Van Allen Probes have revealed that the ring current - an electrical current carried by energetic ions that encircles our planet - behaves in a much different ...
Space Exploration
May 19, 2016
46
696
