Scientists Find Hole In Earth's Magnetic Field 200
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."
The price of aluminum will skyrocket... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:The price of aluminum will skyrocket... (Score:5, Interesting)
ironic in the Alanis Morissette sense (Score:5, Funny)
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probably need lead, instead (Score:5, Funny)
Re:probably need lead, instead (Score:4, Funny)
mmmm... me-jelly...
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Uhh, shouldn't that be the price of TIN?
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The common household name for Aluminum wrap or foil is 'tinfoil'. Regardless of what it is made of. Blame the baby boomers.
[J]
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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.
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aluminum foil = aluminum
tinfoil = tin
aluminum != tin
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Foil made of 100% alumin(i)um is called "aluminium folie", and only the metallised paper used for wrapping chocolate is called "zilverpapier".
But you can expect anything from those wacky Dutch.
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...
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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.
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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Just curious, what reason did your teacher offer for covering such heavy material as The Core?
Excuse me, I need to go heat up my Hot Pockets.
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If it's like most public schools, the reason is ... "I'm too incompetent to do my job"
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?
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but its ok, they were doing it for the cake
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awww jeez. I bet its that damn LHC again. If it's not causing tiny black holes in our atmosphere it's making large gaping holes in our magnetic field.
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My guess is that the holes are caused by violent video games.
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Perhaps the SUV claim is actually wrong and there is an extra amount of UV radiation which is why the poles seem to be melting at below freezing temperatures.
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My bad... I was just figuring we figured it all wrong.
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So every time I think a negative thought, the glass is less half full.
I actually watched the original movie this was parodying and thought the parody was hilarious. Of course I thought the original was pretty funny at times too. Thanks for the link.
Re:Hmmm.... (Score:4, Funny)
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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The article is unclear on whether more particles than expected actually reach the atmosphere. It's unlikely -- the atmospheric part of the aurora is pretty well studied.
Even if they do, it's not very much energy on a planetary scale.
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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.
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Not enough faith blasphemer! Bow down before the even more burning earth.
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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Hybrid SUV's.
Earth's Taint (Score:2, Funny)
I am wondering what is between the two large holes?
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.
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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Google the phrase, genius... all I did was to quote from the first relevant page hit. I shared it because I thought it was hilarious and bizarre. Strangely, on that same first results page there was another page hit for the phrase which also dealt with gay sex. Maybe it's some sorta gay code for something else entirely....
Why would you mod me according to the contents of a Web page I didn't write and merely quoted for the humor of it? Can I mod your comment as "*1 Lacks Perspective" or "*1 Sense of Humo
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Since they're at opposite poles, the answer is: Earth.
Holes near poles (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Holes near poles (Score:4, Informative)
The two large holes in the magnetosphere (Score:2)
One in each hole.
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.
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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.
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Bugs Bunny is the secret owner of Acme, along with he partner the Roadrunner.
When you realize those to run a large galactic corporation, it all makes sense.
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Aw, you're kidding. You mean to tell me this is yet another diabolical scheme that's likely to go awry from the get-go? You know, I thought this thing wasn't holding charge.
OK everyone! Listen up! Official announcement: The Enslaving of all Mankind has been postponed until further notice. Sorry for any inconvenience.
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ACME holes do not fail. You may have the wrong size hole, but those never fail.
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!
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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So now I am reliving the horrors of Scout campfires.
Thanks.
Solar power (Score:2, Interesting)
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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.
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.
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.
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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.
So what does this mean? (Score:2)
I read TFA however I am not quite sure what this means.
Did we cause it? Or has this been happening and we just didn't know about it?
Does this affect climate change?
What are the repercussions of these holes?
Thanks!
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.
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Cool thanks!
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...
Somebody tore the Earth a second hole... (Score:2, Funny)
Huh? (Score:2, Funny)
Did the tag just tell me to tap it?
If Hip-Hop has told me anything, it is to tap any hole that is tappable. I am jealous that the physicists have outdone us again. :(
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]....
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Depends.
IS it a quick flip? then no it won't kill us. Is it a slow flip, then it will kill enough to destroy civilization, at the least.
that's no holes! (Score:2, Funny)
They are Magneto's sisters!
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.
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I don't understand your question.
Al Gore? (Score:2)
Please don't tell me this is another thing Al Gore can blame on llamas, diet grains, or methane cows, please.
(Yes, totally unrelated joke. I'm bored tonight. Deal.)
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it's clearly the work of Man-bear-pig.
I don't know what this has to do with Dick Cheney
The sun is at a low point... (Score:2, Insightful)
The Long Count (Score:2)
...activity that will peak in 2012 as sunspots hit their maximum level.
Could this be what the Mayan's were on about?
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No.
13.0.0.0.0 is just then end of the system. Highly accurate for the time. Based on the number system they used.
Everything else is people falling prey to the sharpshooter fallacy, or selling books..or starting cults.
So, is this something new? (Score:2, Insightful)
Is this something that they've just discovered or something that's normal? Just because they just now found it doesn't mean that it's new.
Can this be captitalized on? (Score:2)
Can we somehow turn the extra energy coming through that hole into electricity? If so, can regular solar panels do it?
Bruce Willis/Hillary Swank movie in the making (Score:2)
Seriously we could nuke the comet to blanket the earth with anti radiation particles for when the earth's core 'stops'. The Golden Gate Bridge will of course have to be melted.
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[citation needed]
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You insensitive clod!
Re:1st Comment! (Score:4, Funny)
Apparently the holes let "first post"-ers through as well.
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Sorry. I farted.
Sorry, (Score:2, Insightful)
Release of greenhouse gasses already has a movement founded upon it.
Or, wait...
I think you're on to something. Instead of creating a new man-made catastrophe for this we can just shove it under the Global Warming, uh, Cooling, uh, Climate Change umbrella. It already has widespread political support and is already designed to unjustly enrich third-world countries at the expense of more successful ones. Why create a new way man is destroying the Earth when we can use the current one?
You're a genius.
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.
A troll with mongo karma (Score:2)
Generally tells you that there is probably a valid point to the post that was labeled as troll because the rater disagreed with it.
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.
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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."
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As a side note, how do these storms disrupt power grids?
"Power grid" := "very large (continent sized) antenna"
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No he didn't.
Look, amazing stuff is happening ALL the time.
You can pick any day and year and find some amazing thing that are going to happen, astronomical.
It's just falling into the sharp shooter fallacy.
Shoot a hole in the wall and draw a target around it.
SInce people were around 26000 years ago, I don't think this 'event' will do anything.
13.0.0.0.0. is the natural rollover for the level of accuracy they chose, based on their number system.