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The scary sound of Earth’s magnetic field
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By Space Force
Lt. Gen. David Miller, Jr., Space Operations Command commander, presided over the ceremony, recognizing the achievements of the unit’s first commander, Col. Marqus Randall, who assumed the position when NSIC first stood up in June 2022.
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By USH
The concept that CO2 and climate change are political fabrications is often propagated by those who believe powerful entities are behind the so-called global warming hoax, aiming to convince the public that human activities are to blame. However, it is argued that climate change is a natural process, similar to events that have occurred throughout history. The video below by Suspicious0bservers provides a detailed analysis of the actual causes of current planetary changes and offers insights into what we might expect in the coming years.
The most recent complete magnetic pole reversal, known as the Brunhes-Matuyama reversal, occurred approximately 780,000 years ago. During this event, Earth's magnetic poles switched places. These reversals are part of Earth's natural geomagnetic processes and occur irregularly over geological timescales.
However, there have been shorter, less complete shifts called geomagnetic excursions. One of the notable recent geomagnetic excursions is the Laschamp event, which occurred about 41,000 years ago. During this event, the magnetic field weakened significantly, and the poles nearly reversed before returning to their original configuration.
Now, Earth is currently undergoing a cyclical magnetic pole shift, known as a geomagnetic excursion. This movement has been accelerating in recent decades, particularly with the North Magnetic Pole rapid movement from the Canadian Arctic towards Russia, which poses a significant extinction threat to many species.
The weakening of Earth's magnetic field and the shifting of its magnetic poles are well-documented phenomena.
In 2000, NASA and geophysicists reported a 10% decline in the magnetic field's strength. By 2010, the European Space Agency's Magnetic Mission updated this figure to a 15% loss, noting an acceleration from a 5% loss per century to 5% per decade. By 2020, another 5% decline was recorded, and the 2023 interpolated value showed further acceleration. The initial 10% reduction took 150 years, but the next 10% occurred within just 20 years. If this acceleration continues, we could lose 5% of the magnetic field every five years.
We anticipate a 50% reduction in the magnetic field by the early 2030s, a level that could make our technological lifestyle unsustainable and lead to severe weather impacts. Around 2040, a full magnetic pole flip or geomagnetic excursion is expected, although this could occur a few years earlier or later.
A critical concern in the coming years is the loss of ozone due to particle-driven molecular destruction, coupled with increased exposure to cosmic ray space radiation. This scenario would result in climate chaos and heightened radiation exposure. The only defense against these effects is Earth's magnetic field, which is currently weakening due to the ongoing pole shift.
Recent studies consistently show that magnetic reversals and pole shifts are extreme environmental events that significantly impact the biosphere. The primary drivers of these impacts are increased radiation and ozone depletion. Numerous studies confirm that solar protons, electrons, and cosmic rays are penetrating the atmosphere more effectively due to the weakening magnetic field, reaching critical levels.
This increased radiation has two main effects: ozone destruction allows more ultraviolet (UV) light into Earth's system, raising temperatures, and cosmic rays intensify extreme weather events, including heatwaves, cold snaps, storms, flooding, and droughts.
These changes not only affect the climate but also harm living organisms. Extra UV light is dangerous for animals, plants, and microorganisms, including oceanic plankton and chlorophyll-based food chains. Cosmic rays similarly amplify particle radiation's detrimental effects, causing cancer, cellular dysfunction, and DNA mutations.
Scientists clearly recognize that cyclical magnetic pole shifts pose significant challenges to life on Earth. Humans will face these challenges both directly and through their impact on the food chain.
Moreover, our dependence on electricity makes us particularly vulnerable. A weakened magnetic field could allow solar activity to disrupt power grids, resulting in widespread loss of heat, water treatment, food transport, communication, and critical infrastructure.
This growing issue highlights the planet's increasing vulnerability as it loses its protective magnetic shield.
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By NASA
2 min read
Hubble Finds a Field of Stars
This image from the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope shows a globular cluster called NGC 1651. ESA/Hubble & NASA, L. Girardi, F. Niederhofer This image from the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope shows a globular cluster called NGC 1651. Like another recent globular cluster image, NGC 1651 is about 162,000 light-years away in the largest and brightest of the Milky Way’s satellite galaxies, the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC). One notable feature of this image: the roughly 120-light-year diameter globular cluster nearly fills the entire frame. In contrast, other Hubble images feature entire galaxies – which can be tens or hundreds of millions of light-years in diameter – that also more or less fill the whole image.
A common misconception is that Hubble and other large telescopes observe wildly differently sized celestial objects by zooming in on them, as one would with a specialized camera here on Earth. While small telescopes might have the option to zoom in and out to a certain extent, large telescopes do not. Each telescope’s instrument has a fixed ‘field of view’ (the size of the region of sky that it can observe in a single observation). For example, the ultraviolet/visible light channel of Hubble’s Wide Field Camera 3 (WFC3), the channel and instrument that collected the data used in this image, has a field of view roughly one twelfth the diameter of the Moon as seen from Earth. When WFC3 makes an observation, its field of view is the size of the region of sky that it can observe.
The reason that Hubble can observe objects of such wildly different sizes is two-fold. First, the distance to an object will determine how big it appears from Earth, so entire galaxies that are relatively far away might take up the same amount of space in the sky as a globular cluster like NGC 1651 that is relatively close by. In fact, there’s a distant spiral galaxy lurking in this image, directly left of the cluster – though undoubtedly much larger than this star cluster, it appears small enough here to blend in with foreground stars! Secondly, images processors can stitch together multiple images spanning different parts of the sky into a mosaic to create a single image of objects that are too big for Hubble’s field of view.
Text credit: European Space Agency (ESA)
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Media Contact:
Claire Andreoli
NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, MD
claire.andreoli@nasa.gov
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Last Updated Mar 29, 2024 Editor Andrea Gianopoulos Related Terms
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By Space Force
The Space Force hosted its second annual Guardian Field Forum at the Gen. Jacob E. Smart Conference Center at Joint Base Andrews, March 11-15.
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By USH
In 2003, an unidentified flying object, comparable in size to a football field, reportedly hovered over Vandenberg Air Force Base, as disclosed during a House Oversight Committee's national security subcommittee hearing on UFOs. The hearing, held on Wednesday, delved into UFOs, now termed "unidentified anomalous phenomena" by the U.S. government.
The proceedings included whistleblower accounts that shed light on purported government UFO programs spanning multiple decades, according to retired major David Grusch. Former Navy fighter jet pilot Ryan Graves, founder of the non-profit Americans for Safe Aerospace, presented testimony regarding the alleged UFO sighting at Vandenberg.
During questioning by Representative Anna Paulina Luna, Graves recounted the 2003 incident: "In the 2003 timeframe, a sizable group of Boeing contractors near a launch facility at Vandenberg observed a large, 100-yard-sided red square approaching from the ocean. It hovered at low altitude over the launch facility for about 45 seconds before rapidly darting off over the mountains around 8:45 a.m."
Graves further described a subsequent event 24 hours later, involving additional sightings on the base, with some objects displaying aggressive behavior toward security guards. The information, according to Graves, came from a witness who approached him at Americans for Safe Aerospace, and this witness possessed documented police blotter and records from the 2003 incidents.
Testimonies from former Major Grusch and ex-U.S. intelligence officer David Fravor were also part of the hearing, although they refrained from answering certain questions. Representative Tim Burchett emphasized the importance of government transparency in addressing the issue, clarifying that the aim was to uncover facts without sensationalizing the subject.
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