Ozzy's sleaze factor continues to rise. By this point, Jetta's figured out that he's more than just an obnoxious little narcissist… but has she caught on too late?
Tune in next time to find out!
(actually, you won't find out next time, but you'll find out eventually. Tune in anyway!)
We mentioned in the last blurb that one of the reasons why Mars is a bad candidate for colonizing, is because it has no appreciable magnetic field. Without one, there's nothing to keep its atmosphere from being stripped away by the solar wind, and any human colonists there will have very little protection from harmful cosmic radiation and potentially lethal coronal mass ejections from the sun. Thankfully here on Earth, we can rely on the fact that we have a strong magnetic field to keep us safe.
Or can we?
As it turns out, Earth's magnetic field is rapidly, mysteriously diminishing. In fact, recent measurements show that it may be decreasing in strength by as much as 5 percent each decade. At that rate, our magnetic field could be gone in as little as 200 years, leading to any number of horrific doomsday scenarios.
There's probably no need to panic. As it turns out, the Earth regularly flips its magnetic poles, and geologists believe what we're witnessing is most likely just fluctuations in the magnetic field as the Earth prepares to flip its poles again. It's freaky to think about, but after this happens, compasses will point south instead of north. The poles have shifted countless times over the age of the Earth, and it hasn't yet led to the end of the world. So you can breathe easy.
While polar shifts aren't unusual, it appears that the Earth is flipping poles much more frequently than it used to. Billions of years ago, the poles flipped maybe once every 5 million years. In our current era, they seem to flip about once every 200,000 years. The last flip was 78,000 years ago. This suggests there are changes going on in the Earth's core as the planet ages. We don't need to worry about the Earth's core going solid like the Martian core did – the Earth will probably be swallowed by the sun long before the core has time to fully cool – however there may be extended periods over the coming centuries when the Earth has significantly less magnetic shielding, at least until the magnetic poles stabilize again. This could lead to all sorts of not-so-good health effects, including increases in certain cancers and mutations, and disruptions in telecommunications, among other things. So it may be something worth keeping an eye on.
I blame Donald Trump.
(had to get a Trump mention in there somehow; this is probably the last day he'll be relevant for a very long time…)
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