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Scientists Find Hole In Earth's Magnetic Field
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."
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.
Engineering is the art of compromise.
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 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 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.
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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.
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.
Since they're at opposite poles, the answer is: Earth.
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."
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.
Notmysig
It is NOT the Mayan calendar end of the world, it's just the end of this number of "places" in the recording system. It's designed so that when you run out of places, you can essentially just cycle it around, and you're in the next "age" as it were. See here for a fairly reasonable explanation. Theoretically, you could also just add another counter to it for the "age" that you're in and cycle the rest (like adding one more decimal place as we do when we count from 9999 to 10000 for example). Despite all this, it's still a pretty cool event from the perspective of the Mayan calendar or otherwise (note that they did have a good REASON for this date, which is far more interesting than a boring old end of world prophecy - see the link).
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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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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.
Exactly. The article subject is totally utterly incorect - we have known that Earth's magnetic field has two holes on each pole for decades. It's the very reason that causes Aurora Borealis or the northen lights. Here in Northern Europe, which is famous for the display of colorful northern lights, it's actually part of the school curriculum to teach children what physically causes this effect, and even my little brother can tell you that Earth's magnetic field has two huge holes around the poles. The NASA article is about the effects these sun wind particles have on Earth's biosphere.
Most of the site appears to be crap, and the last paragraph of the page I linked to is also crap, but the views of the person writing it in no way reflect on the fact that he did raise perfectly valid, scientific and interesting points. For reference, I have no affiliation with that website and just stumbled across that page with a quick google search for "mayan calendar" 2012 "plane of the ecliptic". It's the astronomical aspect of the occurrence that I'm interested in, not any mystical mumbo-jumbo surrounding it. (unfortunately, it's actually pretty hard to find links that AREN'T full of mystical mumbo-jumbo and I was too lazy to go hunting for them)
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Also on facebook as: DroppingAcidDaleBewan
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 Humor Gone AWOL"?