Is it true that when the magnetic field flips suddenly, plane autopilot systems can become confused and crash out of the skies, killing millions en mass?
hopefully
Is Earth's Magnetic Field Flipping Soon?
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Re: Is Earth's Magnetic Field Flipping Soon?
#12"While any magnetic-field flip would still be thousands of years away...". Sneaky sentence right at the end. Sure the last one happened 700,000 years ago, so it is "soon", the but article made it sound like it was happening tomorrow!
Discussing an unstable mountainous area with a geologist once, he made it sound like collapse was imminent, so I asked him when to expect it. "Oh, any day, now - definitely in the next 50,000 years or so..."
Re: Is Earth's Magnetic Field Flipping Soon?
#13Betteridge's law of headlines: "Any headline that ends in a question mark can be answered by the word no."
Does Betteridge's law always apply?
Hat tip to the other two posters for providing serious responses.
If you intended that as a light-hearted witty response (as I believe you did), then you got a chuckle out of me.
Re: Is Earth's Magnetic Field Flipping Soon?
#14Interesting (and possibly related) article about the four yugas in hindu mythology. https://www.speakingtree.in/blog/science-behind-hindu-s-four...
Re: Is Earth's Magnetic Field Flipping Soon?
#15So where it is now? In Siberia?
Re: Is Earth's Magnetic Field Flipping Soon?
#16Interesting (and possibly related) article about the four yugas in hindu mythology. https://www.speakingtree.in/blog/science-behind-hindu-s-four...
It says {Forbidden}. Any alternative location?
Re: Is Earth's Magnetic Field Flipping Soon?
#17Is it true that when the magnetic field flips suddenly, plane autopilot systems can become confused and crash out of the skies, killing millions en mass?
IANAPilot, but I got curious once upon a time and studied those. Short answer: yes, they will get confused, but they won't crash out of the skies. Those systems are designed to account for certain perturbations in magnetic fields. However, there are thresholds in place to return control to the pilot if the entire system craps out at that level.
Re: Is Earth's Magnetic Field Flipping Soon?
#18I wanted to share one of my favorite sites: https://www.pssurvival.com/ Pole shifts are popular among "preppers" which in my opinion tend to be quite eccentric. However this website is full of great information that we often take for granted.
I have no idea what that site is, but this is the introduction: This is a shift of the earth's crust with respect to the earth's core generated north and south magnetic poles. Earth's magnetic poles are created by the flow of ions in the earth's core and is somewhat closely aligned to be parallel to the axis of rotation. We expect about 90 degree shift of the crust as planet-X passes earth's orbit on its way through…
Yeah whoever made this site is bat-shit crazy. But there is tons of great information here. Anything from making soap the old fashioned way to brushed and brushless DC motors. Its really cool and wouldn't be the worst thing to have printed off and saved in a fallout shelter.
Re: Is Earth's Magnetic Field Flipping Soon?
#19Is it true that when the magnetic field flips suddenly, plane autopilot systems can become confused and crash out of the skies, killing millions en mass?
That would be surprising as the altitude control should be independent from the compass. I'd also wager that more than just the compass is used to determine course. Most likely a sanity check in the control software will kick in and return control to the pilot, just as if the compass(es) broke for some reason during flight.
Re: Is Earth's Magnetic Field Flipping Soon?
#20As it says in the article, we don't have anything to fear at the surface. Reversals have never been associated with increased extinction. When the field does reverse, it becomes increasingly disordered with higher-order moments dominating. If I recall, the dipole moment of Earth's magnetic field is normally over 90% of the strength. The higher-order moments dissipate faster, so it doesn't reach as far into space.