In 1905, the French geophysicist Bernard Brunes brought to his laboratory several samples of ferrostones that were raised to the surface during the construction of a road near the village of Pont Farin. When Brunes analyzed the magnetic properties of minerals, he was amazed that the vector of their magnetic field is directed in the opposite direction compared to the current magnetic field of the Earth. So, in fact, the theory of the periodic change of the Earth's magnetic poles was born.
Today we know for sure that the planet's magnetic poles have changed places many hundreds of times, although there is no exact data either when this happened the last time in the past, or, even more so, when it will happen in the future. It is believed that the last time was about 40,000 years ago. But no one knows when this will happen in the future.
Moreover, nobody knows HOW it will happen. Some geophysicists believe that the inversion will be slow and take several thousand years. In fact, according to some scientists, there is not even an inversion as such - the magnetic poles are constantly moving at a low speed.
The animation below demonstrates this process using the example of the movement of the magnetic north pole at 10-year intervals from 1970 to 2020. The red and blue lines indicate declination, which is the difference between magnetic north and true north, and the green lines are where the compass points to true north.
However, along with this, the above opinion, there is an alternative scientific theory. It assumes that the inversion of the poles will happen very quickly, by geological standards it will be instant. And humanity may not survive this catastrophe.
In the past few decades, geophysicists have tried to study the situation more deeply using satellite imagery and mathematical models. The satellites allow scientists to see the edge of a molten metal core, where a magnetic field is continuously generated. It is a dipole - an ordered two-pole magnetic field that our compasses respond to. And this field is now under attack from within.
The latest satellite data from the European Space Agency, which began investigating the problem in 2014, reveals a terrible battle raging on the periphery of the planetary core. Like the political factions planning a coup in the state, colossal masses of molten nickel and iron form a new vortex cluster of the future dipole, which is already clearly visible in the Southern Hemisphere - the so-called South Atlantic Anomaly.
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If this magnetic vortex gains sufficient strength, it will greatly weaken the main magnetic dipole. Further, the situation may develop according to two scenarios. Or the main magnetic field, seeking to regain its superiority, will spontaneously change its poles. Or a new global dipole will form in the planetary core, forcing the planetary field to sharply change the poles.
Scientists cannot say for sure which way the magnetic situation will develop and when the reversal will occur. But even now they know for sure that the vortex of molten iron is increasing all the time and therefore they cannot exclude the possibility of the beginning of a reversal at any moment. All in all, it looks like it's time to start getting ready.
The Earth's magnetic field protects our planet from dangerous solar and cosmic rays like a giant shield. The moment the poles switch, this shield will either be weakened or dropped altogether. Already, changes in the magnetic field in the South Atlantic are so tangible that satellites flying over this area are turned off just in case, since radiation can completely destroy their memory chips.
On Earth, the South Atlantic anomaly is called the "second Bermuda triangle." It is associated, in particular, with the A330 disaster in the Atlantic on June 1, 2009. The airliner Airbus A330-203 of Air France operated flight AF447 on the route Rio de Janeiro-Paris, but after 3 hours and 45 minutes after the break-in fell into the waters of the Atlantic Ocean and completely collapsed. All 228 people on board were killed - 12 crew members and 216 passengers.
Daniel Baker, director of the Laboratory of Atmospheric and Space Physics at the University of Colorado, Boulder, one of the world's experts on cosmic radiation, argues that at the moment of the turn, many parts of the planet will become completely uninhabitable. Destructive streams of particles from the sun and galactic cosmic rays will simply sterilize the Earth, killing all living things.
Of course, this is the most radical and extremely pessimistic point of view. Although it is confirmed, in particular, by the disappearance of certain species on Earth, synchronous with the change of the magnetic poles, nevertheless Daniel Baker may be wrong.
However, what can be said for sure now is that microelectronics on the planet will clearly not survive the pole change. If satellites do not work on the South Atlantic Anomaly, where the magnetic field has simply weakened, then what will happen to the microcircuits if the magnetic field disappears for some time ?!
Today, the Earth is a global cyber-electric cocoon that has become the central technological system of modern civilization. What will happen if cosmic rays and particles break through the thin atmosphere devoid of a magnetic field?
Imagine the world around us, where there are no computers, where there are no cell phones. Even flushing the toilet or filling the car's gas bottle becomes impossible. And that's just for you to start.
Thus, the main and obvious danger of the inversion of the Earth's magnetic field is not that the compass needle will start to rotate differently. The danger is that the change will cause a disaster for all of Earth's technology.
And this is still a very optimistic view because cosmic rays can kill all living things in general. It is possible that some people will hide in underground bunkers and be able to survive all this, but what if cosmic rays kill all life in the jungle and the Ocean? Plankton will die and the Earth will stop producing oxygen for some time.
One of the best ways to defend against such a prospect is to shield our technologies from cosmic radiation. More toggo, most likely such technologies already exist somewhere. But they are not global yet.
The second direction of civilization's actions is the ability to learn to predict this kind of inversion. Unfortunately, at the moment the processes in the Earth's core are absolutely unpredictable and our task is to find out as much as possible about how the magnetic field generally appears and works.