 South Atlantic Anomaly What if we were to tell you that the South Atlantic anomaly is growing? And according to NASA, this has caused Earth's magnetic influence to shrink by 10% in just 10 years. And the weakness in this anomaly just happens to be where Earth's surface comes closest to the Van Allen radiation belt. At a distance of just 120 miles, the South Atlantic anomaly comes very close to exposure from the Van Allen radiation belt. And this leads to an increased flux of energetic particles in this region and exposes orbiting satellites to higher than usual levels of radiation. This has forced scientists from around the world to collaborate in an understanding of what is taking place and how they could possibly reverse the effects of such damage to the Earth's magnetic field. The mysterious patch of magnetic weakness known as the South Atlantic anomaly stretches from South America to Africa and has baffled scientists for decades. Particle radiation in this region has been known to knock out onboard computers and interfere with the data collection of satellites that pass through it. And for these reasons, scientists have been forced to track the anomaly. Most scientists monitor the changes in magnetic field strength, both for how such changes affect Earth's atmosphere and as an indicator of what's happening to Earth's magnetic field deep inside the globe, which is not very well understood at all and they say that. Currently, the South Atlantic anomaly creates no visible impacts on daily life on the surface. However, recent observations and forecast shows that the region is expanding westward and continuing to weaken in intensity and it is also splitting and recent data shows the anomalies Valley or region of minimum field strength has split into two lobes creating additional challenges for satellite missions. If a satellite is hit by a high energy proton, it can short circuit and cause an event called single event upset or SEU and this can cause the satellite's function to glitch temporarily or can cause permanent damage if a key component is hit. In order to avoid losing instruments or an entire satellite, operators commonly shut down non-essential components as they pass through the anomaly. Geophysicists at NASA are observing using the European Space Agency SWARM satellites to investigate how the South Atlantic anomaly is changing. They say that even though the anomaly is slow moving, it is going through some changes in morphology. So it's also important that we keep observing it by having continued missions because that's what helps us make models and predictions. This anomaly is caused by processes inside of the Earth where the magnetic field originates in the outer core where molten metal, rich in iron churns, 1800 miles below the surface and this arises from two features of Earth's core, the tilt of its magnetic axis and the flow of molten metals within its outer core. Earth is a bit like a bar magnet with north and south poles that represent opposing magnetic polarities and invisible magnetic field lines encircling the planet between them. But unlike a bar magnet, the core magnet field is not perfectly aligned through the globe nor is it perfectly stable and this is because the field originates from Earth's outer core, molten, iron rich and invigorous motion 1800 miles below the surface, churning metals which act like a massive generator called the geodynamo creating electric currents that produce the magnetic field. As the core motion changes over time due to complex geodynamic conditions within the core and at the boundary with the solid mantle up above, the magnetic field fluctuates in space and time too. These dynamical processes in the core ripple outward to the magnetic field surrounding the planet, generating the SAA and other features in the near Earth environment including the tilt and drift of the magnetic poles which are moving over time. These evolutions in the field which happen on a similar scale to the convection of metals in the outer core provide scientists with new clues to help them unravel the core dynamics that drive the geodynamo. These forces in the core and the tilt of the magnetic axis together produce the anomaly, the area of weaker magnetism allowing charged particles trapped in Earth's magnetic field to dip closer to the surface. Imagine a sun which expels a constant outflow of particles and magnetic fields known as the solar wind and vast clouds of hot plasma and radiation called coronal mass ejection and when this solar material streams across space and strikes Earth's magnetosphere, the space occupied by Earth's magnetic field, it can become trapped and held in two donut shaped belts around the planet called the Van Allen belts. These belts restrain the particles to travel along Earth's magnetic field lines, continually bouncing back and forth from pole to pole. The innermost belt begins around 400 miles from the surface of Earth which keeps its particle radiation a healthy distance from Earth and its orbiting satellites. However, when a particularly strong storm of particles from the sun reaches Earth, the Van Allen belts can become highly energized and the magnetic field can be deformed, allowing the charged particles to penetrate the atmosphere, leading a leading NASA mathematician to say that the observed anomaly can be also interpreted as a consequence of weakening dominance of the diapole field in the region. More specifically, a localized field with reversed polarity grows strongly in the South Atlantic Anomaly region, thus making the field intensity very weak, weaker than that of the surrounding regions. One outcome for the happening is that the weakening of the field is a sign that the Earth is heading for a pole reversal in which the North and South magnetic poles flip. This flip doesn't happen immediately, but instead would occur over the course of a couple of centuries, during which there would be multiple North and South magnetic poles all around the globe. Such events have occurred many times throughout the planet's history. Some might say we are long overdue by the average rate at which these reversals take place, roughly every 250,000 years. If geologic history repeats itself, Earth's magnetic poles should eventually swap places and this much is undeniable. Based on the magnetic fingerprints locked into ancient rocks, we know that over the last 20 million years, magnetic North and South have flipped roughly every 200,000 to 300,000 years. However, this rate has not been constant over the planet's lifetime, though the last of these major reversals occurred around 780,000 years ago, although the poles do wander around in between these larger flips. That means we're a bit overdue for a total reversal and some research does suggest that a geomagnetic reversal is geologically imminent, but this does not mean that a polar flip-flop is going to happen tomorrow or even anytime soon. But if this anomaly is a sign of that formidable event, then don't expect a catastrophe again. Research suggests this will be a slow process over thousands of years, allowing for the proper migrations to naturally take place with some predictions that we would be minimally affected by such a shift in the pole. But what do you guys think of this anyway? Comments below and as always, thank you for watching.