Nilesh's Weblog

Changing Sides

According to this Guardian article, the Earth's magnetic poles might just change positions. Compasses around the world will point to the wrong pole. North will become South and East will become West. The indicator to this has been the decline in strength of the Earth's magnetic field and the rate of which is speeding up. Don't worry, it is still about a millenium or two away. It was about 780,000 years ago that the last flip occurred. And what exactly will be the effect on us? Nothing to mention actually, except that during the flip, the magnetic field of earth will shut down temporarily and we will be exposed to EM radiation from space! And yes, satellites will suffer. Probably your TV screen, The Internet, phone lines will remain dead for a period ranging from a week to about a 1000 years! ;-) If you are really alarmed by that, just take solace from the fact that our star Sun flipped its magnetic poles last year. As if you noticed the difference... Oh, the sun seems more hotter now.... :-). In other news, at place under South Africa, the magnetic field is pointing in the opposite direction than the rest of the world. The size of this area has been growing for a hundred years now. Learn about magnetic cycles here.