ALL SCI-FI

[Gord Green]

FROM YAHOO NEWS:

Earth's magnetic north pole has been leading scientists on something of a wild goose chase.
Over the last 40 years, the spot toward which all our compasses point has moved by an average of about 30 miles per year. In September, magnetic north aligned briefly with geographic north (where all the lines of longitude converge at the North Pole) as it passed over the Prime Meridian.



But then it kept moving, skittering from its previous location in Nunavut, Canada towards Siberia.

"Magnetic north has spent the last 350 years wandering around the same part of Canada," Ciaran Beggan, a scientist from the British Geological Survey (BGS), told Business Insider. "But since the 1980s, the rate it was moving jumped from 10 kilometers [6.2 miles] per year to 50 kilometers [31 miles]."

Beggan is part of a group of scientists who track the errant pole from year to year. Their work informs the World Magnetic Model (WMM), a map of the planet's magnetic field.

According to the most recent update of the WMM, magnetic north is still zooming along, though its speed has decreased a bit, to 24.8 miles per year.

"By 2040, all compasses will probably point eastward of true north," Beggan said, adding that magnetic north's march toward northern Russia is far from over.
Earth's magnetic field is a sheath of geomagnetic energy that shields the planet from deadly and destructive solar radiation. Without it, solar winds could strip Earth of its oceans and atmosphere.

But the magnetic field and its poles aren't static. Since scientists discovered the magnetic north pole's existence in 1831, it has moved 1,400 miles. Magnetic south, however, hasn't moved at all in the last century, Beggan said.
Keeping tabs on changes in the magnetic field is imperative for European and American militaries, since their navigation systems rely on it. So, too, do GPS apps and commercial airlines.



Earth's magnetic field exists thanks to swirling liquid nickel and iron in the planet's outer core, 1,800 miles beneath the surface. Anchored by the north and south magnetic poles (which tend to shift and even reverse every million years or so), the field waxes and wanes in strength, undulating based on what's going on in the core.

Justin Revenaugh, a seismologist from the University of Minnesota, previously told Business Insider that such weakening can accompany a process in which magnetic north and south switch places.



That has happened several times in Earth's history; the latest reversal was 780,000 years ago.

When such swaps are occurring, the magnetic field drops to about 30% of its full strength, Revenaugh said. Magnetic north loses its strength during these times too, according to Beggan, and sometimes disappears completely for a time. If the pole were to vanish, compasses would instead point to local magnetic north poles that form all over the planet.

Then about a millennium later, those local poles would reform into one big magnetic north pole as the reversal process progressed.

But a full reversal takes so long that people on Earth would be mostly unaffected. According to a paper published in August, the last swap took 22,000 years to be fully complete.

READ THE WHOLE ARTICLE HERE :

https://www.yahoo.com/news/earths-magnetic-north-pole-skittering-125000417.html?_guc_consent_skip=1577054004&guccounter=2
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There comes a time, thief, when gold loses its lustre, and the gems cease to sparkle, and the throne room becomes a prison; and all that is left is a father's love for his child.

[Eadie]

How about a smart electronic compass that receives an up-date (like our smart phones)?
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Art Should Comfort the Disturbed and Disturb the Comfortable.

[Krel]