A bad news! Earth's magnetic field has cracked for unknown reasons, and scientists are concerned

Some people think that the emergence of life on earth is an accidental event, but others think that it is the result of a combination of many aspects. If the appearance of the first life on earth was an accident, then it can continue to survive on the earth and reproduce offspring, indicating that the natural environment of the earth is suitable for life to survive. Compared with other planets, the earth has many environmental advantages, such as a suitable atmosphere, suitable temperature, flowing liquid water and so on.

In addition, there is another condition that people often ignore, that is, the earth's magnetic field. Earth's magnetic field is invisible, but it is vital to life on Earth. Without the protection of Earth's magnetic field, radiation in the universe would render the Earth's surface barren. However, in September last year, NASA unexpectedly reported that the Earth's magnetic field in the South Atlantic region has a significant dent and may be further split. Why does this happen? After the Earth's magnetic field is completely split, what will be the impact?

Why does Earth's magnetic field split?

NASA researchers have been paying attention to the geomagnetic field in the South Atlantic since July and August last year. Data monitoring for more than two months shows that the magnetic field in the South Atlantic has obvious dents, and the magnetic field in the dented area has disappeared. . The researchers systematically simulated future changes in the magnetic field, and the results showed that the dent will continue to spread westward, eventually causing the entire South Atlantic magnetic field to disappear completely. After the public was informed of the news, they all wanted to know what caused the abnormal magnetic field.

Regarding this issue, NASA scientists said that they have not yet reached a unified conclusion, but there are two possibilities. The key is to see how the Earth's magnetic field is generated. If the Earth's magnetic field originated in the interior of the Earth, then the reason for the dent in the magnetic field should be an abnormality in the interior. The Earth's interior temperature exceeds 5,000 degrees Celsius, and elementary particles are always active at such a high temperature. It is theorized that the motion of these particles is responsible for the formation of the magnetic field.

According to this statement, the abnormality of the magnetic field should be caused by the abnormal movement of the internal particles, but there is no way to verify the authenticity of this statement. Another point of view is based on the origin of the earth's magnetic field from the external environment, that is, the solar radiation particles and cosmic radiation particles have long accumulated in the outer layer of the atmosphere, and then there is a directional movement, and finally the earth's magnetic field is formed. If the geomagnetic field is formed in this way, the cause of the magnetic field depression is related to the outer layer of solar activity.

Other scientists believe that the magnetic field depression is a manifestation of the reversal of the earth's magnetic field. According to the research of scientists, there have been many magnetic field reversals in the history of the earth, causing the magnetic north and south poles to be opposite to the geographical north and south poles many times, and the current magnetic north pole points to the geographical south pole. Therefore, scientists believe that there is a possibility of geomagnetic reversal. If this theory is to be proved, it is necessary to continue to observe the changes in the geomagnetic field in the South Atlantic in the later period.

What are the effects of the splitting of Earth's magnetic field?

In fact, the public's biggest concern is what will happen if the magnetic field in the South Atlantic continues to split? Since the existence of the geomagnetic field has been ignored for a long time, people are aware of the seriousness of the magnetic field anomaly. First of all, the earth's magnetic field is an invisible protective cover. If the earth's magnetic field is completely split, the atmosphere will also be split. For a long time, scientists have been studying the relationship between the atmosphere and the magnetic field. Through the analysis of other planets, scientists have come to a conclusion that there is no atmosphere without a magnetic field.

Where the earth's magnetic field breaks may lead to a vacuum region in the atmosphere, which is equivalent to opening Pandora's box, allowing countless cosmic radiation to enter the earth through this vacuum channel, posing a serious threat to life on the surface of the earth. Secondly, many electronic products of human now need to rely on the earth's magnetic field to function properly, such as communication and positioning systems. Since ancient times, human beings have learned to use the earth's magnetic field to identify directions, and the advent of the compass is the most powerful evidence.

If the magnetic field is abnormal, many electronics related to positioning and navigation can fail. Like humans, there are many animals in nature that rely on the Earth's magnetic field to locate and identify directions, most of which are birds and flying insects. If the earth's magnetic field is abnormal, these animals that rely on the magnetic field to tell their direction will encounter an existential crisis. The dent in the Earth's magnetic field is unlikely to recover in a short period of time, so this situation may lead to the endangerment or even extinction of a large number of species.

If the earth loses its magnetic field, where will humanity go?

In this day and age, as long as there are some abnormal conditions on the earth, it is easy to cause the public to worry about the future. After NASA scientists discovered a magnetic field dent in the South Atlantic, many foreign netizens began to imagine an extreme situation. If the earth's magnetic field disappeared, what should humans do? If you want to continue living, you have to leave Earth before the magnetic field completely disappears. So where can humans go? Go to a pre-reformed planet.

At present, it seems that this planet is very likely to be Mars, because among the three planets closest to the earth, Venus has the worst natural environment, the moon is the next, and Mars is short and tall. It really meets the requirements of human survival, and its basic conditions are still far away, but scientists have the confidence to transform it. Otherwise, why has the United States insisted on exploring Mars for more than 40 years? To some extent, Mars still has some hope.

Some people may say that even if humans hope to transform the natural environment of Mars and create a place suitable for human existence, it will take hundreds or even thousands of years. Is it too late? From the perspective of the earth's past magnetic field changes, a complete magnetic field reversal takes millions of years. Therefore, as long as humans have been living on the earth during this long period of time, there will be opportunities to continuously develop technologies and improve space exploration capabilities.

What hope does Mars give to humans?

For a long time, Mars is a planet that makes humans feel conflicted. On the one hand, many scientists and business leaders are full of expectations for immigrating to Mars. On the other hand, the detection information of Mars proves that this planet is not suitable for habitation. In 2009, the British "The Times" reported a public speech made by Elon Musk, the founder of the American Space Exploration Technology Company. migrant.

Not only Musk, but NASA also believes that the Mars immigration plan is promising in the future. You may have doubts about this. Mars obviously does not meet the most basic survival requirements of life on Earth. Why do scientists still have hope for it? This starts with the basic information of Mars. From the outside, Mars is an orange-red planet, which is why it is called "Mars". Mars is only 15% of Earth's volume, 11% of Earth's mass, and 38% of Earth's gravity.

At first glance, these data are not attractive, but make people feel that Mars is too "dwarf", but the following aspects of Mars are what attracts scientists. First of all, Mars has a thin atmosphere. Although 95% of the composition is carbon dioxide, its atmospheric density is only 1% of the density of the earth's atmosphere. Therefore, the greenhouse effect on Mars is not obvious, but it provides green plants to take root on Mars. Good atmospheric environment.

Secondly, Mars' rotation period is 24.63 hours. Like Earth, it has a climate with four distinct seasons. The lowest temperature in winter reaches minus 125 degrees Celsius, and the highest temperature in summer reaches 22 degrees Celsius. Moreover, scientists have proved that there are a large number of ice sheets in the north and south poles of Mars. If they are used a little, these ice sheets can become important raw materials for humans to modify the Martian environment. In addition, there are many oxidized substances on the surface of Mars, and humans can use these oxides as raw materials to produce oxygen and metals through chemical reactions.

For a long time, Mars has given the impression of a barren planet, but scientists have found through a large amount of exploration data that Mars is still rich in resources. For example, the wind energy on Mars is more abundant than the wind energy on Earth. Humans can develop wind energy power generation on Mars; Mars also has geothermal energy, and at the same time, the deuterium generated by geothermal energy can be used as a raw material for nuclear power generation. As humans learn more and more about Mars, human confidence in migrating to Mars is becoming more and more clear.

Is Mars colonization really possible?

Humans can indeed survive on Mars, but the survival time is very limited, this is the conclusion drawn by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. An in-depth analysis of data from the Netherlands-based Mars One Space Launch Company by a team of five researchers at MIT has resulted in a 35-page report that ultimately gives The conclusion is that humans can go to Mars, but it is impossible to immigrate to Mars. Why do you say that?

Scientists involved in the study said that the plants that humans brought to Mars from Earth can only produce a limited amount of oxygen, which can only support humans on Mars for at most two months, and soon after two months. Some people died from lack of oxygen. In addition, transporting supplies to Mars is a huge challenge. The distance between Earth and Mars is at least 55 million kilometers, and it will take at least 7 months to cross this distance, and the limited materials for each transport have led to increasing transportation costs.

MIT researchers agree that humans are not well-prepared for colonizing Mars, and technical preparations are limited. From this point of view, we don’t have to be too optimistic about immigrating to Mars, but we should solve the ecological and environmental problems of the earth based on the current survival opportunities.