{"id":8319,"date":"2020-05-30T17:07:12","date_gmt":"2020-05-30T11:37:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/triumphias.com\/blog\/?p=8319"},"modified":"2023-04-13T12:02:38","modified_gmt":"2023-04-13T06:32:38","slug":"earths-magnetic-field","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/triumphias.com\/blog\/earths-magnetic-field\/","title":{"rendered":"Earth\u2019s Magnetic Field"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

Earth\u2019s Magnetic Field<\/h1>\n
Relevance: Prelims\/Mains: G.S paper I: Physical Geography<\/strong><\/span>\"Earth's<\/header>\n<\/section>\n
\n

What is the Magnetic Field of Earth?<\/span><\/h3>\n

\"Earths<\/p>\n

\u2022 Earth\u2019s magnetic field, also known as the Geomagnetic field,<\/strong> is the magnetic field that extends from the Earth\u2019s interior out into space, where it interacts with the solar wind, a stream of charged particles coming out from the Sun and repel them back into space.
\n\u2022 The magnetic field is generated by electric currents due to the motion of convection currents<\/strong> of a mixture of molten iron and nickel in the Earth\u2019s outer core: these convection currents are caused by heat escaping from the core, a natural process called a Geodynamo.<\/p>\n

What is Convection Current?<\/span><\/h3>\n

\"PPT<\/p>\n

\u2022 Convection is one of the three main types of heat transfer, the other two being conduction and radiation. Unlike the other two, convection can only happen in fluids (i.e.- liquid and gas).
\n\u2022 To help you understand it better.<\/p>\n

For example:<\/strong> Imagine it\u2019s lunchtime, and you\u2019re hungry. You decide to heat up a pan of soup on a gas stove. As the soup gets heat the molecule of soup starts moving rapidly. Because of this extra rise in temperature the molecules start moving away from each other and becomes less dense. As a result of this, hotter fluids become less dense than colder fluids. The soup near the bottom of the saucepan is hottest, because it is closer to the burner. This means that the soup is less dense at the bottom.
\n\u2022 Now, it is already known that, the matter which has less density floats on the surface of water and matter with high density sinks down. The same thing happens with the soup. The hotter, less dense soup at the bottom rises above the colder, denser soup. As the soup rises and gets further away from the burner, it starts to cool and become denser. Before long, the soup is dense enough that it sinks again\u2013passing the rising hot soup on its way\u2013and the whole process repeats. These movements in the soup are called convection currents.<\/p>\n

\"Convection
\n\u2022 Now coming back to the topic, there is no soup boiling in pan inside our Earth\u2019s crust rather, a mixture of molten iron and nickel cause rise of convection currents. These currents escape out from the Earth\u2019s core. The escaping of these convection current is a natural process known as Geodynamo.<\/strong>
\n\u2022 Now that, you understood the background of the topic. Let us see what does the latest new report says.<\/p>\n

Recent News and findings:<\/span><\/h3>\n

\u2022 Scientists have found the magnetic field from Africa to South America to be gradually weakening which is causing problems for satellites and space crafts in navigation.
\n\u2022 The phenomenon has been dubbed as the South Atlantic Anomaly by scientists,
\n\u2022 The data gathered by the European Space Agency\u2019s swarm of satellites reveals that the area of the anomaly dropped in strength by over 8 per cent between 1970 and 2020.<\/p>\n

What is causing weakening of magnetic field?<\/span><\/h3>\n

\"Earth's<\/p>\n

\u2022 One of the reasons for this could be a shift in the Earth\u2019s magnetic field, whereby the North Pole and the South Pole switch places as the field reverses.<\/strong>
\n\u2022 This reversal last happened 7.8 lakh years ago, with scientists believing that a shift is long overdue. These reversals usually happen at an interval of 250,000 years.
\n\u2022 However, a study published in the scientific journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences in 2018 found that despite the weakening field, \u201cEarth\u2019s magnetic field is probably not reversing\u201d. Given that the reversal of a magnetic field takes tens of thousands of years of occurring, the exact cause for the weakening of the geomagnetic field is for now another of Earth\u2019s mysteries yet to be ascertained.<\/p>\n

What effect will the weakening of Earth\u2019s magnetic field create?<\/span><\/h3>\n

\u2022 The Earth\u2019s magnetic field also plays an important role in protecting the planet from solar winds and cosmic radiation that are harmful.
\n\u2022 The magnetic field of Earth protects the life of Earth from the harmful cosmic radiation and charged particles emitted from the Sun. Birds, turtles and other creatures also use the magnetic field of Earth to navigate.
\n\u2022 The navigation systems and mapping functions in smartphones may get affected.
\n\u2022 The telecommunication and satellite systems also rely on the geomagnetic field. Therefore, computers, mobile phones and other devices could also face difficulties. South in the compass could point to Canada and North to Antarctica.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\"Earths<\/p>\n

For more such notes, Articles, News & Views Join our Telegram Channel.<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

https:\/\/t.me\/triumphias<\/strong><\/span><\/a><\/p>\n

Click the link below to see the details about the UPSC \u2013Civils courses offered by Triumph IAS.<\/strong> <\/span>https:\/\/triumphias.com\/pages-all-courses.php<\/a><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Earth\u2019s Magnetic Field Relevance: Prelims\/Mains: G.S paper I: Physical Geography What is the Magnetic Field of Earth? \u2022 Earth\u2019s magnetic<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3521,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[7,15],"tags":[4765,4771,4763,4764,4766,4772,4768,4608,4774,4770,4767,4769,4773,1391,392,390],"class_list":["post-8319","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-general-studies-i","category-geography","tag-convection-currents","tag-cosmic-radiation","tag-earths-magnetic-field","tag-geomagnetic-field","tag-molten-iron-and-nickel","tag-navigation","tag-north-pole","tag-physical-geography","tag-satellite-systems","tag-solar-winds","tag-south-atlantic-anomaly","tag-south-pole","tag-telecommunication","tag-triumph-ias","tag-union-public-service-commission-upsc","tag-upsc"],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/triumphias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8319","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/triumphias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/triumphias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/triumphias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/triumphias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8319"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/triumphias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8319\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14067,"href":"https:\/\/triumphias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8319\/revisions\/14067"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/triumphias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3521"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/triumphias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8319"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/triumphias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8319"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/triumphias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8319"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}