Are the Magnetic Poles about to shift?
I’ve been looking at information on the possibility of a shift in the magnetic poles. Some of the information appears in the End of the World 2012 Movie, Book, and EBook.
An online Reuters article says:
The only thing stopping Earth having a lifeless environment like Mars is the magnetic field that shields us from deadly solar radiation and helps some animals migrate, and it may be a lot more fragile and febrile than one might think.
Scientists say earth’s magnetic field is weakening and could all but disappear in as little as 500 years as a precursor to flipping upside down.
The rest of the article gets pretty scary, because it says that scientific studies have shown that the earth’s magnetic field reverses itself approximately every 250,000 years. BUT, it’s been over 800,000 since the last shift in the magnetic poles. Eek! We’re 550,000 years overdue for a flip in the magnetic poles!
Evidently, a shift in the magnetic field can make a planet vulnerable to losing its atmosphere. Scientists believe that Mars lost its atmosphere billions of years ago when the red planet’s magnetic field reversed and the solar wind blew the atmosphere off of Mars. Without an atmosphere, any life that may have been on Mars perished.
During the time the magnetic field is reversing, a planet’s atmosphere is not as tightly held to the planet and could be blown away by the solar wind.
As earth’s magnetic poles become more unstable–magnetic north has moved over 1500 kilometers in the last century–the magnetic field around the earth is weakening.
The article gets really scary when it says that at the rate things are going, earth’s magnetic field could become so weak as to be non-existent in 500 years and the magnetic poles could flip. At that time, would the solar wind blow away our atmosphere leading to the demise of dear old planet Earth?
Yes, I know 500 years isn’t in our lifetime. However, in earth time, it is a very short time away.
