Earth’s ever-changing magnetic field
This animation shows changes in Earth’s magnetic field from January to June 2014 as measured by ESA’s Swarm trio of satellites.
The magnetic field protects us from cosmic radiation and charged particles that bombard Earth, but it is in a permanent state of flux. Magnetic north wanders, and every few hundred thousand years the polarity flips so that a compass would point south instead of north.
Moreover, the strength of the magnetic field constantly changes — and it is currently showing signs of significant weakening.
The field is particularly weak over the South Atlantic Ocean — known as the South Atlantic Anomaly. This weak field has indirectly caused many temporary satellite ‘hiccups’ (called Single Event Upsets) as the satellites are exposed to strong radiation over this area.
More about Swarm: http://www.esa.int/swarm
Credits: ESA/Dot2Dot
(New version of a previously uploaded video)
More useful to Physics students.
Does it not look like the northern pole is splitting close to Siberia where that big giant sink hole just happened?
Stupid
All Muslim know about Sun will rise from the west as Muhammad told us!! It’s will take 2 or 3 days for us to realise, night will become longer than usual.. we been taught how to perform prayer as we pray 5 times a day when the time has come..