Table of Contents
What causes magnetic reconnection?
Small Collisions that Cause Big Problems Magnetic fields are made up of field lines. Electrons and ions flow along these invisible lines. By heating up and accelerating the particles in the plasma, that rearrangement transforms magnetic energy into particle energy. This tumultuous process is magnetic reconnection.
Where does magnetic reconnection occur?
Magnetic reconnection occurs during solar flares, coronal mass ejections, and many other events in the solar atmosphere. The observational evidence for solar flares includes observations of inflows/outflows, downflowing loops, and changes in the magnetic topology.
What causes the magnetic reversal of our planet Earth?
Earth is surrounded by an immense magnetic field, called the magnetosphere. This causes the location of Earth’s magnetic north and south poles to gradually shift, and to even completely flip locations every 300,000 years or so.
What happens when the magnetic field of Earth is reversed?
A flipped magnetic field could seriously disrupt communications systems and power grids. It could also produce multiple north and south poles, and birds, whales and other migratory animals that use the field to establish a sense of direction could encounter problems.
What exactly is magnetic field?
A magnetic field is a vector field that describes the magnetic influence on moving electric charges, electric currents, and magnetic materials. A moving charge in a magnetic field experiences a force perpendicular to its own velocity and to the magnetic field.
When does magnetic reversal happen?
These reversals are random with no apparent periodicity to their occurrence. They can happen as often as every 10 thousand years or so and as infrequently as every 50 million years or more. The last reversal was about 780,000 years ago.
How long was the longest reversal of the Earth’s magnetic field?
22,000 years
In August 2018, researchers reported a reversal lasting only 200 years. But a 2019 paper estimated that the most recent reversal, 780,000 years ago, lasted 22,000 years.