When NASA speaks, we listen. We are in awe of rocket scientists much like the awe we feel when we see Congress actually doing something.
NASA scientists warned “The sun’s entire magnetic field is about to flip. This is a natural phenomenon like earthquakes, floods and hemorrhoids.”
This happens every 11 years, and coincides with the greatest solar activity of sun ‘cycles’ with sunspots and ‘coronal mass ejections’.
When I say ‘Coronal Mass Ejections’, it isn’t what a church leader does because a group of rowdy guys are smoking cigars behind the apse. No, it’s a little more serious than that.
The effects of this massive magnetic realignment will be felt throughout the solar system, including here on Earth.
In a press release, Phil Scherrer, a solar physicist at Stanford University, said “The world will not end tomorrow, but I would think twice before I put a down payment on a time share in Orlando.”
Whoa!
OK, what does it all mean Mr. Wizard? “Well Billy, remember when I told you never to stick your finger in the light socket or every hair on your body would stand up and people would laugh at you? Well, a coronal mass ejection could be a little worse, I’m afraid. Remember that fall-out shelter your family built in 1955? No help there. Also forget about stocking toilet paper and hot pockets. Even a ‘comfort animal’ won’t give you peace of mind if it all goes south.”
Even though some of us think Justin Beiber is the source of all happiness, it’s really the sun sitting benignly 93 million miles away (To the average American, that’s about 4,500 kilometers).
Scientists don’t expect anything too crazy to happen but they were wrong when they said the Earth was the center of the universe weren’t they? It’s actually Paris.
Chances are if you’re more than about 11 years old, you’ve experienced the effects of a major solar magnetic flip already, probably without even realizing it.
It happened the day your high school teacher handed in his resignation after a spitball narrowly missed his head and stuck on the black board while he was writing the class English assignment. That’s right; the solar magnetic flip was the ‘straw’. Yes, it was subtle.
Let’s take a look back at 2002, just 12 years ago and see what the effects of the sun’s magnetic field change made us go through.
The Department of Homeland Security was created and with it a ‘color threat chart’ that changed every once in a while, making us ‘feel’ more or less ‘threatened.’
The US Senate created a single Nuclear Waste Dump at Yucca Mountain, Nevada to replace the existing 130 dumps around America at the same time citizens started up a petition drive to have Yucca Mountain designated as the place to send all politicians in case of a national emergency.
In 2002 the Euro became the legal tender of 12 of the European Union’s 15 member states. Germany was the strongest member, while the GNP of Malta, Estonia and Cypress combined, equaled the revenue of a mediocre weekend during October-Fest in the town of Nesselwang.
The effects are so powerful they will be felt beyond Pluto which may or may not be a planet. It may affect phenomena such as cosmic rays, which some believe can alter the climate on Earth. Hey, we don’t need help from the sun to wreck the planet; we’re doing quite nicely on our own.
