Geomagnetic will flip

On many levels, the Earth we live on is an amazing existence. However, the most amazing thing is that after billions of years of nurturing the Earth, is now the only planet with life found by human exploration of space.

Special planet, the conditions for the birth of life are very demanding, to allow humans to survive on this earth, the conditions required will be more.

To our knowledge, the presence of liquid water is a necessary condition for the birth of life, but other aspects of the Earth's properties should not be ignored, such as the geomagnetic field.

Geomagnetic field and magnetic poles

It may seem hard to believe that the Earth has a magnetic field. But if we take the example of a carrier pigeon, it becomes much clearer at once.

The geomagnetic field refers to the magnetization that exists inside the Earth, making it resemble a large magnetic field. It is generally believed that the earth is a magnetic dipole, with two poles near the north and south poles respectively. The angle between these two poles and the Earth's rotation axis is about 11.3 degrees, and the magnetic fields of the two parts of the line spread outward to form the Earth's magnetospheric gravity.

Compared with the tangible liquid water and atmosphere, human records about the geomagnetic poles are not late. Nearly a thousand years ago, Shen Kuo recorded in his "Mengxi Pen-talk" the following sentence.

"Fangjia sharpened the needle blade with a magnet, then can guide, but often slightly to the east, not all south."

That is, although the compass used by the Fang Shi was able to point south, the actual direction indicated was shifted to the east. Although Shen Kuo had already discovered this strange phenomenon at this time but did not know what was the cause.

It was not until the seventeenth century that Gilbert, an Englishman, wrote a book called "Magnets", recording many facts about the nature of magnets, and thus made a bold experiment. He ground a magnet into a magnetic ball, and then placed a magnetic needle made of iron wire near the ball, and found that the needle was deflected like a compass.

After that, Gilbert summed up the theory through his experiment, he thought that the earth itself is a magnet, and each end has a magnetic pole. The theory of the geomagnetic field has been developed continuously since then, and it has become more and more perfect.

However, how the Earth's magnetic field is formed has become a major problem for scientists. Scientists put forward many conjectures, but the debate finally ended in the 1920s when Lamour proposed the "self-excited motor" theory.

It is widely believed that the formation of the geomagnetic field is related to the Earth's core. The Earth's core, located in the innermost layer of the Earth, not only has a temperature of more than 6,000 degrees Celsius but also contains a large amount of iron, i.e., there is a large amount of liquid iron in the core. When the Earth rotates, the liquid iron inside the core will also move with it, thus generating an induced current, and the electromagnetic effect is thus formed.

The geomagnetic field is created by the combined effect of the Earth's self-propagation and the flow of liquid in the core. However, it is also the fluidity of the conducting liquid that makes it possible for the already stabilized magnetic field to change.

Magnetic pole movement and geomagnetic field overturning

In 1930, the north magnetic pole was determined for the first time. But according to NOAA data, since the pole was identified, it has been in motion, and the north magnetic pole, once located in northern Canada, has now reached the Siberian region, with a displacement distance of more than 2,000 kilometers.

Not only that, scientists say that the north magnetic pole has become faster and faster, moving at a rate of nearly 60 kilometers per year. According to the direction of the north magnetic pole's movement, it may cross China in the future.

So if the north magnetic pole moves out of control, will it move to the southern hemisphere and cause the geomagnetic field to flip? The answer is yes.

Although humans have only been on Earth for about three million years, we can probe the story of what happened in the Earth's past from something else on the planet.

Using lava from the ocean floor, scientists have hypothesized that the geomagnetic field has flipped many times. The seafloor lava contains a lot of minerals and therefore has the characteristics of a compass. Its north and south poles were the directions of the geomagnetic field at the time, but scientists have found that the direction indicated by the lava is different from the direction of the geomagnetic field today.

It is speculated that the geomagnetic field has flipped almost every 500,000 years during the Earth's more than four billion years, and it takes 5,000 to 7,000 years to achieve each flipping.

Too long years should be irrelevant to us, but when the geomagnetic field starts to reverse its poles, it is considered a disaster for all the creatures of the Earth.

Consequences of the loss of the geomagnetic field

We have already mentioned that the Earth will form a magnetosphere because of the geomagnetic field. But when the magnetic poles begin to flip, the geomagnetic field will disappear completely.

The magnetosphere is the biggest contributor to the Earth's ability to block the charged particles carried by the solar wind. If the geomagnetic field disappears, the magnetosphere will no longer exist, and humans will have to directly face the solar wind in the universe. Not only that, but other rays from the universe would also reach the ground, exposing Earth's creatures to intense radiation.

In addition, as the geomagnetic field disappears, the chromosomes of the earth's organisms will be affected by the charged particles and undergo a series of mutations.

In addition, the loss of the geomagnetic field is the first to suffer the loss of creatures that rely on it to "walk". Pigeons will not be able to find their way, turtles will not be able to return to their fixed positions, and all communication devices and aerospace projects created by humans relying on the geomagnetic field will be out of order.

Whether original or acquired, it seems to be inevitable.

However, in recent years, researchers have come up with another explanation for the change in the north magnetic pole, suggesting that it is not a fixed pole flip, but something else.

They believe that the north magnetic pole is moving because it is not the conductive fluid flowing inside that holds the location of the north pole, but the two magnetic fields located beneath Canada and Siberia.

The pole shift is the result of the weakening of the magnetic field beneath Canada and the strengthening of the magnetic field in Siberia.

A magnetic pole flip would be another disaster for the Earth. Although humans have performed many feats, changing the Earth's magnetic field is still a pipe dream. Perhaps mankind will realize the plan of interplanetary migration or use the development of technology to prevent the magnetic pole from flipping before it does so.

After all, it has been more than 700,000 years since the last magnetic pole flip, far more than the average time, which means that there is still hope for mankind to change its fate.