Sun's magnetic field on the brink of 180-degree flip

[Star Wars]

The Sun's magnetic field is expected to flip by 180-degrees in the next three to four months which could lead to changes in climate, storms and even disrupt satellites, scientists have warned.

The Sun's magnetic field changes polarity approximately every 11 years. It happens at the peak of each solar cycle as the Sun's inner magnetic dynamo re-organises itself.

The reversal will mark the midpoint of Solar Cycle 24.

Half of "solar max" will be behind us, with half yet to come.

"It looks like we're no more than three to four months away from a complete field reversal. This change will have ripple effects throughout the solar system," said solar physicist Todd Hoeksema of Stanford University.

Magnetograms at Wilcox have been tracking the Sun's polar magnetism since 1976, and they have recorded three grand reversals-with a fourth in the offing.

"The Sun's polar magnetic fields weaken, go to zero and then emerge again with the opposite polarity.

This is a regular part of the solar cycle," Solar physicist Phil Scherrer, also at Stanford, said.

A reversal of the Sun's magnetic field is, literally, a big event. The domain of the sun's magnetic influence (also known as the "heliosphere") extends billions of kilometres beyond Pluto.

Changes to the field's polarity ripple all the way out to the Voyager probes, on the doorstep of interstellar space. When solar physicists talk about solar field reversals, their conversation often centres on the "current sheet."

The current sheet is a sprawling surface jutting outward from the Sun's equator where the Sun is slowly rotating magnetic field induces an electrical current.

The current itself is small, only one ten-billionth of an amp per square meter, but there's a lot of it: the amperage flows through a region 10,000 km thick and billions of kilometres wide. Electrically speaking, the entire heliosphere is organised around this enormous sheet, researchers said.

During field reversals, the current sheet becomes very wavy. Scherrer likens the undulations to the seams on a baseball.

As Earth orbits the Sun, we dip in and out of the current sheet. Transitions from one side to another can stir up stormy space weather around our planet, researchers said.

Cosmic rays are also affected. These are high-energy particles accelerated to nearly light speed by supernova explosions and other violent events in the galaxy.

Cosmic rays are a danger to astronauts and space probes, and some researchers say they might affect the cloudiness and climate of Earth.

http://www.ndtv.com/article/world/s...-180-degree-flip-402509?pfrom=home-topstories

So we are 3-4 months away from a massive solar event ...
Am really not to knowledgeable on this so can anyone tell what after effects will this have on Earth....IS this what Solar storm is ?

 

[PeaceGen]

So we are 3-4 months away from a massive solar event ...
Am really not to knowledgeable on this so can anyone tell what after effects will this have on Earth....IS this what Solar storm is ?

this reversal happens every 11 years, so we've had a few already since we had sattelites. the reversal hasn't been a problem in the past, so i'm guessing it won't be any problem this time either

 

[Star Wars]

this reversal happens every 11 years, so we've had a few already since we had sattelites. the reversal hasn't been a problem in the past, so i'm guessing it won't be any problem this time either

oh thought the world was going to end

 

[PeaceGen]

oh thought the world was going to end

our sun won't end our world until about 1.1 billion years from now i've read somewhere...

the only thing the sun can mess up today is when it would produce a massive solar-mass-ejection that actually hits earth (small chance..). we'd lose only our satellites and some of our powerplants temporarily then, which is a major nuisance, but probably not a real threat to humanity..

 

[Audio]

our sun won't end our world until about 1.1 billion years from now i've read somewhere...

We will make it live forever! Look at the progress in the last 200 years and think about the next thousand.

 

[Imran Khan]

knowledge sucks when we were unaware of sun thousands of years we enjoyed life now every day new drama . first we got that earth magmatic field is getting weak now this BS .super nova blast freezing earth - earth under water . end of stars live - etc ect damn

 

[PeaceGen]

We will make it live forever! Look at the progress in the last 200 years and think about the next thousand.

let the rich build their hotels on the moon and mars as quickly as they can afford it'll be good to be a multi-planet race

 

[Dr. Strangelove]

our sun won't end our world until about 1.1 billion years from now i've read somewhere...

no
right now our sun is 4.5 bn years old and it have only used half of its nuclear fuel so it will start to die in after 4.5 bn year

 

[PeaceGen]

no
right now our sun is 4.5 bn years old and it have only used half of its nuclear fuel so it will start to die in after 4.5 bn year

BBC Earth - Timeline - Future Earth - What does the future hold? :

During the next four billion years, the luminosity of the Sun will steadily increase, resulting in a rise in the solar radiation reaching the Earth. This will cause a higher rate of weathering of silicate minerals, which will cause a decrease in the level of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. In about 600 million years, the level of CO 2 will fall below the level needed to sustain C3 carbon fixation photosynthesis used by trees. Some plants use the C4 carbon fixation method, allowing them to persist at CO 2 concentrations as low as 10 parts per million. However, the long-term trend is for plant life to die off altogether. The die off of plants will be the demise of almost all animal life, since plants are the base of the food chain on Earth.

 

[Dr. Strangelove]

BBC Earth - Timeline - Future Earth - What does the future hold? :

During the next four billion years, the luminosity of the Sun will steadily increase, resulting in a rise in the solar radiation reaching the Earth. This will cause a higher rate of weathering of silicate minerals, which will cause a decrease in the level of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. In about 600 million years, the level of CO 2 will fall below the level needed to sustain C3 carbon fixation photosynthesis used by trees. Some plants use the C4 carbon fixation method, allowing them to persist at CO 2 concentrations as low as 10 parts per million. However, the long-term trend is for plant life to die off altogether. The die off of plants will be the demise of almost all animal life, since plants are the base of the food chain on Earth.

dont worry we will do something about it

 

[PeaceGen]

dont worry we will do something about it

yea, we'll spread to other planets well in time i think. if we don't kill off our planet and population and ability to get off Earth's ground by economic and environmental corruption and our tendency towards war(mongering)...

 

[Dr. Strangelove]

yea, we'll spread to other planets well in time i think. if we don't kill off our planet and population and ability to get off Earth's ground by economic and environmental corruption and our tendency towards war(mongering)...

the fate of earth is known if we didnt stopped fu**g it all the time in 500 years it will be hell to live

 

[PeaceGen]

the fate of earth is known if we didnt stopped fu**g it all the time in 500 years it will be hell to live

it's already hell today, for way too many starving people. even more will starve per day in the next 100 years due to the climate change that is real and increasing in intensity..

humanity's top priority i believe would be to implement widespread well-built transfer infrastructure to pump flood waters to drought-suffering lands that can be farmed on. the key to making this happen i think would be to make the water-transfer and resulting agricultural infrastructure itself reasonably profitable for the ones building and maintaining it.

 

[Gandhi G in da house]

500 or 500 Million or 1 billion . How does it matter how long Earth lasts ? None of us are going to be there to see it end. We should only bother about what happens in the next 50 to 60 years.

A giant Asteroid strike is still the biggest threat to life on Earth.

 

[dray]

BBC Earth - Timeline - Future Earth - What does the future hold? :

During the next four billion years, the luminosity of the Sun will steadily increase, resulting in a rise in the solar radiation reaching the Earth. This will cause a higher rate of weathering of silicate minerals, which will cause a decrease in the level of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. In about 600 million years, the level of CO 2 will fall below the level needed to sustain C3 carbon fixation photosynthesis used by trees. Some plants use the C4 carbon fixation method, allowing them to persist at CO 2 concentrations as low as 10 parts per million. However, the long-term trend is for plant life to die off altogether. The die off of plants will be the demise of almost all animal life, since plants are the base of the food chain on Earth.

Don't worry, we are already very good at producing CO2

However, long before this happens; either we will manage to kill the human race with nuclear bombs, or we will spread across the galaxy and beyond, and will be fighting for control of planets.
The way things are going; first option looks more of a possibility.