Kevin's Watch

Apparently the sun is set to 'flip over' [well - at least it's magnetic poles are] in the next week or two. This will apparently 'send ripples out' across the solat system. I haven't read the reports to be honest but I'm assuming that due to the complete absence of global panic, it's not envisaged as a 'game changer' in respect of our continued existence. But who knows ...are the cogniscenti, the movers and shakers, quietly boarding their private jets and heading toward their underground bolt-holes as we speak.....

Does anyone know - does this happen a lot or is it a 'first' since we developed technology that [presumably] could be interfered with by such happenings.

The Earth's does it too. But it takes a long time for a complete reversal. It would be interesting to see how the next one affects man.

Harbinger wrote:The Earth's does it too. But it takes a long time for a complete reversal. It would be interesting to see how the next one affects man.

True, and I've wondered about that myself more than once.
It depends on a lot of things no one really knows the answer to. All we know for sure is ordinary compasses will need some re-facing.

The earth's one is apparently long overdue and nobody is sure what it will mean for us.

As Vraith says, the Sun reverses its poles quite regularly. All it usually means is an increase in sunspots, maybe some interference, not much more than that.

--A

Could you guys elaborate on what 'a long time for a complete reversal' means re the earths magnetic poles - are we talking decades, millenia - surly this is going to be the significant factor in the degree of unpleasantness such a reversal could inflict.

Thanks for the Links Hashi - I'm off there now to find out what kind of Monster could score a groove on the Sun like that!

peter wrote:Could you guys elaborate on what 'a long time for a complete reversal' means re the earths magnetic poles - are we talking decades, millenia - surly this is going to be the significant factor in the degree of unpleasantness such a reversal could inflict.

Thanks for the Links Hashi - I'm off there now to find out what kind of Monster could score a groove on the Sun like that!

I haven't looked at that in a long time, so this is mostly memory...some more accurate than others probably.
First...Av isn't exactly right. The "recent average" time between earth pole-flips is around 1/2 a million years. BUT...it's an average that lies a lot. Cuz there have been gaps of tens of millions of years...and I think the shortest time was something like a flip after about 50k, followed by a flip back less than 500 years later. The "pattern" that leads to that average is actually a random general spread between something around 100k and 1 million.
The transition time itself is pretty slow normally...between 2 or 3k and 10 or 12k IIRC.

I think I read about that "canyon"...related to a mass ejection a bit ago, I think.

It's been a while...I don't remember if that was based on the average, or simply the current state of the geomagnetic field.

A quick look around shows that although there is an ongoing slight decline in the strength of the field, they still don't think it will flip for probably at least hundreds of years yet, and that it usually takes at least 1,000 years to perform the full reversal. (That said, evidence of relatively quick reversals exists too...by quick, they mean 440 years. )

Looks like the "overdueness" is down to the fact that it a full pole reversal usually happens every 200-300k years, but the last one was 780,000 years ago. (There appear to be "minor" reversals in between though.)

And there's the South Atlantic Anomaly too, which looks like it's growing as the magnetic field weakens. (And the field appears to be weakening at a much higher rate inside the anomaly than outside of it.)

--A