Hearing the Earth’s fluctuating magnetic field as a sound is an unforgettable horror: ScienceAlert

The Earth’s magnetic field flipped dramatically a little over 40,000 years ago. We can now experience this disturbance as an unnerving rumble that is interpreted through the information gathered European Space Agency swarm Satellite mission.

By combining satellite data with evidence of magnetic field line movements on Earth, European geologists mapped the so-called Lachamp event and represented it using natural noises such as the creaking of wood and the crash of rocks.

The resulting compilation from the Technical University of Denmark and the German Research Center for Geosciences is unlike anything you’ve heard before.

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They are generated by swirling liquid metals at the heart of our planet. Earth’s magnetic field It arrives Tens to hundreds Thousands of kilometers into space, protecting us all by keeping out solar particles that strip away the atmosphere.

In their current direction, the field lines form closed loops that go south to north above the planet’s surface, then north to south deep inside. However, more often than not, the field flips its polarity randomly. If this happened again today, compasses pointing north would point to the South Pole.

The last catastrophic event occurred about 41,000 years ago and left a mark in the lava flows at Lachamp in France. As the field weakened to only 5% of its current strength, the reflection process allowed an excess of cosmic rays to pass into the Earth’s atmosphere.

Glacial and marine sediments preserve the isotopic signatures of this higher-than-normal solar bombardment, with beryllium-10 isotope levels doubling during the Lachamp event, according to A study published earlier this year.

These altered atoms are formed when cosmic rays interact with our atmosphere, ionizing the air and igniting the ozone layer. Since global climate change is a likely outcome, the extinction of Australia’s megafauna as well as changes in human use of cave are expected to be linked to this event.

“Understanding these extreme events is important for their future occurrence, space-based climate predictions, and assessing their impacts on the environment and on the Earth system,” German Research Center for Geosciences and Geophysics Sanja Banovska He explained at the time.

It took 250 years for the Lachamp overturn to occur, and it remained in the unusual direction for about 440 years. At most, Earth’s magnetic field may have remained at 25% of its current strength as the North Pole drifted south.

Recent magnetic field anomalies, such as a weakening over the Atlantic Ocean, have led to questions about today’s impending reversal, but recent research suggests that these anomalies are not necessarily related to reversal events.

the South Atlantic anomaly However, satellites in the region are exposed to higher levels of radiation.

Since 2013, ESA’s Swarm constellation has been measuring magnetic signals from the Earth’s core, mantle, crust, oceans, ionosphere and magnetosphere so that we can better understand our planet’s geomagnetic field and predict its fluctuations.