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Scientists Find Hole In Earth's Magnetic Field
Posted by
samzenpus
on Wed Dec 17, 2008 11:19 PM
from the better-tan dept.
from the better-tan dept.
Velorium writes "The Earth's magnetic field has been found to have two large holes that are making Earth's surface vulnerable to solar winds. Despite what scientists originally thought, these holes allow 20 times the normal amount of solar particles through when they are facing away from the sun. This is the opposite of what the scientists had first speculated."
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The price of aluminum will skyrocket... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:The price of aluminum will skyrocket... (Score:5, Interesting)
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ironic in the Alanis Morissette sense (Score:5, Funny)
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probably need lead, instead (Score:5, Funny)
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Re:probably need lead, instead (Score:4, Funny)
mmmm... me-jelly...
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Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Uhh, shouldn't that be the price of TIN?
Re:The price of aluminum will skyrocket... (Score:5, Insightful)
Besides, Aluminium is more fun to say. Aluminium.
In the US, if you go into a store and ask to buy some Aluminium; you might get a visit from Home Land Security.
Parent
I saw this in "The Core" (Score:5, Funny)
A bright shaft of light is going to sneak through the hole in the field and melt the Golden Gate Bridge. Just you wait.
At least we can be safe at night. ...Probably...
Re:I saw this in "The Core" (Score:4, Funny)
Never fear, scientists have almost perfected the synthesis of "unobtainium"
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Re:I saw this in "The Core" (Score:5, Funny)
At least we can be safe at night.
...these holes allow 20 times the normal amount of solar particles through when they are facing away from the sun
Well, so much for being safe at night...
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
A bright shaft of light is going to sneak through the hole in the field and melt the Golden Gate Bridge. Just you wait.
It's the attack of the killer pigeons I'm worried about. Everybody should get out of urban areas and stock up on shotgun shells now, just in case.
Re:I saw this in "The Core" (Score:4, Funny)
A bright shaft of light is going to sneak through the hole in the field and melt the Golden Gate Bridge. Just you wait.
It's the attack of the killer pigeons I'm worried about. Everybody should get out of urban areas and stock up on shotgun shells now, just in case.
Eeep, I don't know whether you should be modded funny or insightful.
Parent
Re:I saw this in "The Core" (Score:4, Funny)
At least we can be safe at night. ...Probably...
They mostly come at night... mostly...
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Hmmm.... (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Hmmm.... (Score:5, Funny)
If global warming is presumably caused by SUVs, what are holes in the magnetic field caused by? Too many cell phones?
The results of a runaway experiment after "Bring your daughter to work day" at Aperture Science?
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
but its ok, they were doing it for the cake
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
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My guess is that the holes are caused by violent video games.
Re:Hmmm.... (Score:4, Funny)
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Re:Hmmm.... (Score:5, Informative)
Physics.
These aren't unusual, new, or different in any way to what has always happened. Despite the alarmist summary, the point of the article was that more particles sneak through the magnetosphere when the fields of the sun and earth are aligned (opposite to what was believed) and that we had a satellite in the right place to watch this happening.
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Re: (Score:3, Funny)
If global warming is presumably caused by SUVs, what are holes in the magnetic field caused by? Too many cell phones?
No; it's from an attempt to create a magnetic field that uses twenty percent less magnetism; they create holes that cover 20% of the field. It's known as the Eco-Magnetic field.
Re:Hmmm.... (Score:5, Funny)
George Bush. Everything is his fault.
Expect the holes to start closing in about five weeks.
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Holes near poles (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Holes near poles (Score:4, Informative)
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Ah sorry guys (Score:5, Funny)
I left my ACME Megalaser of Doom plugged in overnight, on the 'degaussing' setting. Honestly, I thought it was just on 'charge'.
Awfully sorry. It won't happen again. Promise.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Sorry to go off topic, but did you ever notice how quick ACME's shipping was? As soon as Wiley Coyote or Bugs Bunny dropped a letter in the mail, a truck arrived within seconds with his package. The logistics behind their supply chain management was incredible. Sure, they were A Company that Makes Everything, but I was always impressed on their shipping response time.
Acme Re:Ah sorry guys (Score:4, Funny)
ACMEis a large mulitfaceted industrial and services company that owns both a package delivery conglomerate which includes matter replication and temporal transmission systems. Since they are a large monopoly spanning not only Earth but several thousand inhabited systems in several hundred universes they have access to a wide array of products and services and the ability to deliver them to customers who subjectively observe that delivery occurs nearly instantaneously.
Their only failing is having some of the parts for that system made in China.
No one has explained how Bugs Bunny could always get good product though it has been postulated he had the uncanny ability to manipulate events at a quantum level and ensure positive outcomes at the macro level.
Parent
There's a hole (Score:5, Funny)
There's a hole in the Mag Field dear Liza, a hole.
So fix it dear Henry, dear Henry, dear Henry,
So fix it dear Henry, dear Henry, FIX IT,
With what should I fix it, dear Liza dear Liza,
With what should I fix it, dear Liza with what?
With a Greenie, dear Henry, dear Henry, dear Henry,
With a Greenie, dear Henry, dear Henry, with Greenie's (sigh),
Regards
Slashdot Girl
Re:There's a hole (Score:5, Funny)
With what should I fix it, dear Liza dear Liza
With Henries [wikipedia.org], of course!
Parent
Re:There's a hole (Score:5, Informative)
Now that is funny. Guess it went over the moderators' heads. A Henry is a unit of inductance. Grossly oversimplified, inductance is basically the property by which current produces an electromagnetic field....
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Speaking of tin foil (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Speaking of tin foil (Score:5, Funny)
before the LHC "we see nothing". And now, after the LHC was turned on... "oh, look at the too shiny two holes!" - coincidence?
Before LHC: George W. Bush.
After LHC: Barack Obama.
I think we need more high energy physics expirements.
Parent
Mayans (Score:4, Funny)
Quote from TFA:
"Understanding how these holes form will help them better predict the electrical storms that cause power grid blackouts and the aurora, activity that will peak in 2012 as sunspots hit their maximum level."
Please God let Diablo III come out before then.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Well, there's a problem with that theory.
Sunspots are at a near-historic low. See this NASA graph at http://solarscience.msfc.nasa.gov/SunspotCycle.shtml [nasa.gov] for a bit of an understanding. The 11yr sunspot cycle that was supposed to peak around 2012 isn't there. See http://www.dailygalaxy.com/my_weblog/2008/06/the-sunspot-mys.html [dailygalaxy.com] for speculation.
The holes may be old Osborne I's, connected via acoustically-coupled modems, that are sucking the life away from the magnetosphere. Adam Osborne would have been proud.
Large Hadron Collider (Score:3, Funny)
Heh. You guys thought they took it offline because it had a little glitch.
Re:Large Hadron Collider (Score:4, Funny)
Compared to some of the worst case scenarios from certain sections of the media and assorted doom-mongers it was a little glitch. A big glitch would have gone something like:
Scientist 1: What's that strange glow...
Scientist 2: I don't know but its getting bigger...
Diety of choice: Whoops. There goes Eath, time to build another but I'll fit a circuit breaker this time...
Parent
Magnetic Poles about the Flip (Score:5, Interesting)
Perhaps the Earth's magnetic poles are about to flip [blogspot.com].
Supposedly it won't kill us all [foxnews.com]....
Bad Summary? (Score:5, Informative)
Apparently submitted by the department of redundancy department apparently, the problem is that's not what the article actually says.
It the alignment of the fields North-to-South being discussed and nightside effects are not explicitly discussed. Some clarification by a physicist would seem in order.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
[citation needed]
Re:1st Comment! (Score:4, Funny)
Apparently the holes let "first post"-ers through as well.
Parent
Why power grids? (Score:3, Informative)
Secondly, the induced voltage is proportional to the area times the number of turns times the change in flux density. Since power grids cover huge areas, changes in magnetic flux duensity can cause huge disturbances in network voltages, tripping protection relays and causing other mayhem.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
It's a mediocre article, and a horrendous summary.
The new finding is that more particles get through when the Earth's field and the Sun's field are aligned in the same direction. It was previously believed that the opposite was true - more particles get through when the fields are oppositely aligned. I assume that's what the summary meant by "facing away from the sun."
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Getting them to stay there would be pretty hard. Plus the particles in question are mostly protons and some free electrons. Probably not so good for your solar collector.
Re:So what does this mean? (Score:5, Informative)
No, we didn't cause it. Yes, it's always been happening, but yes we always knew about it. We just had one of the details backwards - more particles get through when the sun and earth fields are aligned rather than opposite, as was previously believed.
No, it doesn't affect climate change. The repercussions is that the poles get aurorae (revolutionary, I know, particularly as I grew up under them), and that if we get a really bad solar storm with the right conditions it can be bad for the power grid. As has been dramatically demonstrated several times ever since we started building power grids.
Parent
Re:Earth's Taint (Score:5, Funny)
"The Earth's magnetic field has been found to have two large holes that are making Earth's surface vulnerable to solar winds"
I am wondering what is between the two large holes?
A region of the earth known as the magnetic perineum.
Parent
NOT the first use of that phrase! (Score:4, Interesting)
You will be shocked... shocked, I tell you... to discover that yours is actually not the first original use of that phrase, though yours is certainly a propos:
http://membres.lycos.fr/marindaaugus/bathroom-gay.html [lycos.fr]
And I quote:
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Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Since they're at opposite poles, the answer is: Earth.
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Re:Okay, what did we do this time? (Score:4, Informative)
We prefer these orbits because they best serve the equatorial regions we have monopolized.
I know I should be feeding a troll, but the reason for putting most communications' satellites into equatorial orbits is that these are the only orbits that can be geostationary (satellite stays put relatively to the surface).
You really prefer to be able to leave your antenna's pointed to the same spot in the sky, rather than having to equip it with a motor that follows the satellite around.
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