Weird: Out of Nowhere, Something Just Rocked Earth’s Magnetic Field

A GLOBAL MAGNETIC ANOMALY:  On June 23rd, Earth’s quiet magnetic field was unexpectedly disturbed by a wave of magnetism that rippled around much of the globe. There was no solar storm or geomagnetic storm to cause the disturbance. So what was it?

The Sun today, cue ball blank. Image: NASA SDO

Lately, Earth’s magnetic field has been quiet. Very quiet. The sun is in the pits of what may turn out to be the deepest Solar Minimum in a century. Geomagnetic storms just aren’t happening.

“That’s why I was so surprised on June 23rd when my instruments picked up a magnetic anomaly,” reports Stuart Green, who operates a research-grade magnetometer in his backyard in Preston UK. “For more than 30 minutes, the local magnetic field oscillated like a sine wave.”


20200623_PC5 _Wave

This chart recording shows a magnetic wave rippling through Preston UK on June 23, 2020. Credit: Stuart Green.

Green quickly checked solar wind data from NOAA’s DSCOVR satellite. “There was nothing–no uptick in the solar wind speed or other factors that might explain the disturbance,” he says.

He wasn’t the only one who noticed. In the Lofoten islands of Norway, Rob Stammes detected a similar anomaly on his magnetometer. “It was remarkable,” he says.

“Our magnetic field swung back and forth by about 1/3rd of a degree. I also detected ground currents with the same 10 minute period.”

What happened? Space physicists call this phenomenon a “pulsation continuous” or “Pc” for short. Imagine blowing across a piece of paper, making it flutter with your breath. Solar wind can have a similar effect on magnetic fields. Pc waves are essentially flutters propagating down the flanks of Earth’s magnetosphere excited by the breath of the sun. During more active phases of the solar cycle, these flutters are easily lost in the noise of rambunctious geomagnetic activity. But during the extreme quiet of Solar Minimum, such waves can make themselves “heard” like a pin dropping in an silent room.

anomaly3

Magnetic observatories around the world detected the wave on June 23, 2020. Credit: INTERMAGNET

Earth’s magnetic field was so quiet on June 23rd, the ripple was heard all around the world. INTERMAGNET‘s global network of magnetic observatories picked up wave activity at the same time from Hawaii to China to the Arctic Circle. There’s even a hint of it in Antarctica.

Pc waves are classified into 5 types depending on their period. The 10-minute wave on June 23rd falls into category Pc5. Slow Pc5 waves have been linked to a loss of particles from the van Allen radiation belts. Energetic electrons surf these waves down into Earth’s atmosphere, where they dissipate harmlessly.

With Solar Minimum in full swing, there’s never been a better time to study these waves. Keep quiet … and stay tuned for more.

Story from SpaceWeather.com it is well worth visiting this site

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June 25, 2020 6:44 pm

“A GLOBAL MAGNETIC ANOMALY: On June 23rd, Earth’s quiet magnetic field was unexpectedly disturbed by a wave of magnetism that rippled around much of the globe. There was no solar storm or geomagnetic storm to cause the disturbance. So what was it?”

UFOs maybe?????

https://tambonthongchai.com/2018/12/03/tcruparody/

mwhite
Reply to  chaamjamal
June 26, 2020 1:26 am

“S0 News Jun.24.2020”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f2ucaFJVFNk

Earth facing coronal hole which directly connected to the earth yesterday with its interplanetary magnetic fields

Will
Reply to  chaamjamal
June 26, 2020 3:13 am

I would imagine it’s from the inner core maybe core quake.

jorgekafkazar
Reply to  Will
June 29, 2020 4:16 pm

That was my first thought, too. Quake may not be quite the right word, but if the iron core isn’t isothermal, different crystalline species may be forming or transitioning. Different phases may have different densities, magnetic properties, chemical compositions, or thermal conductivities.

erobot
Reply to  chaamjamal
June 26, 2020 6:05 am

They’re right schedule. Our betters having failed at every eaethly level to oust our heaven-sent president, an invasion from space aliens is next on their agenda.

Welcome bros.

Tierney
Reply to  erobot
July 2, 2020 12:10 am

This wasn’t space weather’s conclusion though.

Orville
Reply to  chaamjamal
June 26, 2020 7:12 am

I wonder if this might have anything to do with the fact that all the planets of the Solar System, except for Uranus and Neptune, are currently lined up into a super-syzygy? Look it up. On my Apple Watch display they are lined up to about the 5 o’clock position on an anolog watch. So, would that change the magnetic properties of the Solar system. Remember, space is full of charged particles.

rickk
Reply to  Orville
June 26, 2020 8:57 am

Everyone is neglecting the elephant in the room – Trump – this magnetic dalliance was due to Trump – all the never Trumpers would agree

Reply to  rickk
July 2, 2020 12:59 pm

🤣🤣🤣

Reply to  Orville
June 26, 2020 11:50 am

Also of note was that there was a spike of large quakes globally after 5 months of relative quiet behavior. For five days in a row strong quakes hit at different spots around the planet. The planet finally quieted down just in the last 24 hours.

Here is the planetary alignment. I left a related comment at SpaceWeather yesterday about this, … https://mgvez.github.io/jsorrery/

MarkW
Reply to  Orville
June 26, 2020 3:40 pm

“So, would that change the magnetic properties of the Solar system. ”

No.

Tierney
Reply to  MarkW
July 2, 2020 12:10 am

Um, yes.

Reply to  chaamjamal
June 26, 2020 10:17 am

I was sitting at my desk and I felt it.

I hadn’t received any training until I was 8 years old, almost too late by most standards. So, even with my limited abilities, being able to feel it, means that somewhere there was a significant disturbance of the Force.

June 25, 2020 6:48 pm

Hey, it is 2020.

Eben
June 25, 2020 6:55 pm

Lucifer farted

Martin C
Reply to  Eben
June 25, 2020 10:01 pm

Unicorns all farting at once – quick, let’s figure out how to capture that energy . . ! 🙂

EndOfPatience
Reply to  Martin C
June 26, 2020 3:40 am

That’s silly.

Everyone knows that unicorn farts are the benign energy source of the Shining Green Future.

NME666
Reply to  Eben
June 26, 2020 3:33 pm

hello!!

Brian Stratford
June 25, 2020 6:56 pm

Have you read Immanual Velikofskys worlds in collision or earth in upheaval? last polar switch was around -700 to -800 BC

Reply to  Brian Stratford
June 25, 2020 7:03 pm

“Reversal occurrences are statistically random. There have been 183 reversals over the last 83 million years. The latest, the Brunhes–Matuyama reversal, occurred 780,000 years ago,”

Wiki…

Probably slightly more believable than Velikovsky…

MarkG
Reply to  Leo Smith
June 25, 2020 9:45 pm

Yes. The last reversal was a long time ago and the average time between them is measured in hundreds of thousands of years.

The North Pole is currently going walkabout, heading into Russia at a mile or two per week. But as I understand it, it’s more likely to just wander around for a few decades than do a full reversal.

MarkW
Reply to  MarkG
June 26, 2020 6:53 am

From observing the earth’s magnetic field over the last few decades, it appears that the reversal won’t be a case of the entire magnetic field weakening, turning off, then growing again with the opposite polarity.
Rather areas of reversed magnetic orientation, such as the current patch in the S. Atlantic, form, grow larger and more numerous, until they come to dominate and become the new normal.

Ron Long
Reply to  MarkW
June 26, 2020 7:04 am

MarkW, the time for a reversal to complete was the subject of a previous comment by myself. I utilized a normally-polarized intrusion, the adjacent (genetically associated) reversely-polarized magnetite skarn (tactite), the cooling rate of the skarn to pass below the Curie Point, and came up with around 150 to 200 years. For sure this is back-of-the-envelope science, but it was an interesting result.

Robert W. Turner
Reply to  MarkG
June 26, 2020 7:28 am

There really isn’t a true reversal ever. The “reversal” period is more like a random and weak period.

William Astley
Reply to  MarkG
June 26, 2020 1:18 pm

We really do live in a unique time….

Predictions concerning what is going to happen, to the geomagnetic field need to explain why the geomagnetic field started to abruptly change in 1990. They also need to explain why the geomagnetic field intensity drops in the geomagnetic paleo record by roughly a factor of 5 to 10 …. roughly every 30,000 years and then ‘recovers’…. see link above for paper link.

In addition to the geomagnetic excursions (drops in intensity of a factor 5 to 10) which occur just before the large Heinrich climate change events, like the Younger Dryas…

There are smaller abrupt magnetic field changes, called archeomagnetic jerks. The archeomagnetic magnetic field changes also correlate with climate change events.

The abrupt changes to the geomagnetic strength have continued right up today, which explains why there have been emergency adjustments to global navigation systems in the last decade.

The north geomagnetic pole drift velocity suddenly increased by a factor of ten, from 15 km/year to 55 km/year starting in the 1990s for unexplained reasons…

And in addition the geomagnetic field intensity which was decaying at 5% per century is now decaying at 5%/decade.

What Caused Recent Acceleration of the North Magnetic Pole Drift?
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/2010EO510001/pdf
The north magnetic pole (NMP) is the point at the Earth’s surface where the geomagnetic field is directed vertically downward. It drifts in time as a result of core convection, which sustains the Earth’s main magnetic field through the geodynamo process. During the 1990s the NMP drift speed suddenly increased from 15 kilometers per year at the start of the decade to 55 kilometers per year by the decade’s end.

This acceleration was all the more surprising given that the NMP drift speed had remained less than 15 kilometers per year over the previous 150 years of observation. Why did NMP drift accelerate in the 1990s?

The sudden change in the Northern magnetic pole drift velocity and the sudden decrease in the strength of the geomagnetic field…

….was one of the reasons the EU space agency found the half billion dollars funding for the ‘Swarm’ satellite system which was developed to monitor the magnetic field.

http://news.yahoo.com/earths-magnetic-field-weakening-10-times-faster-now-121247349.html

“Earth’s Magnetic Field Is Weakening 10 Times Faster Now
…Previously, researchers estimated the field was weakening about 5 percent per century, but the new data revealed the field is actually weakening at 5 percent per decade, or 10 times faster than thought. As such, rather than the full flip occurring in about 2,000 years, as was predicted, the new data suggest it could happen sooner.

Floberghagen hopes that more data from Swarm will shed light on why the field is weakening faster now….”

William: Swarm is a set of three satellites that were launched in November, 2013 to study unexplained recent unexplained rapid changes to the geomagnetic field.

https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-019-00007-1

Something strange is going on at the top of the world. Earth’s north magnetic pole has been skittering away from Canada and towards Siberia, driven by liquid iron sloshing within the planet’s core. The magnetic pole is moving so quickly that it has forced the world’s geomagnetism experts into a rare move.

On 15 January, they are set to update the World Magnetic Model, which describes the planet’s magnetic field and underlies all modern navigation, from the systems that steer ships at sea to Google Maps on smartphones.

The most recent version of the model came out in 2015 and was supposed to last until 2020 — but the magnetic field is changing so rapidly that researchers have to fix the model now.

“The error is increasing all the time,” says Arnaud Chulliat, a geomagnetist at the University of Colorado Boulder and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s (NOAA’s)

Darren P
Reply to  Leo Smith
June 25, 2020 11:09 pm

Maybe . Maybe Not. I still beleive Otto Muck over Moderrn Science

Ron Long
Reply to  Darren P
June 26, 2020 3:00 am

Otto Muck? You got me there, Darren P, so I had to look him up. The Destruction of Atlantis and The Transcendental Method. So, Otto Muck is at least on a par with modern science as displayed promoting CAGW. Otto Muck and normal science….not so much. Stay sane and safe.

William Astley
Reply to  Leo Smith
June 26, 2020 9:44 am

Why do you say the geomagnetic field reversals are random? Have you ever looked at the paleo geomagnetic record? It is interesting that there was a period of time when the geomagnetic field has unexplainably was reversing with a periodicity of 10,000 years.

Have you looked at the subject of geomagnetic excursions? Geomagnetic reversals have got all the press. Geomagnetic excursions got missed in the excitement. A geomagnetic excursion is an unexplained sudden drop in the intensity of the geomagnetic field intensity of a factor of 5 to 10.

There is evidence of unexplained drops in strength of the geomagnetic field of a factor of 5 to 10. Geomagnetic excursions occur roughly every 30,000 years.

A sudden drop in the geomagnetic field strength of a factor of 5 to 10 is a big deal. What causes geomagnetic excursions? Why do these sudden drops in the geomagnetic field intensity of a factor of 5 to 10, correlate with abrupt climate change?

The unexplained sudden drops in the geomagnetic field intensity of a factor of 5 to 10, correlate with abrupt climate changes such as the Younger Dryas abrupt cooling event…

The Younger Dryas abrupt cooling period, started 12,900 years ago, at a time when solar summer insolation at 65N was maximum.

The planet at 12,900 years ago when from interglacial warm to glacial cold with 70% of the cooling occurring in less than a decade. The planet remained cold for 1200 years, at which time the geomagnetic strengths and the planet warms.

Paleomagnetic excursions
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/BF02919335

“Every magnetic excursion event corresponds to paleointensity minima, anteceding those established abrupt paleoclimatic change events, such as the Younger Dryas and the Heinrich Events (H1–H6). Here, we tentatively propose that these geomagnetic excursions/reversals can be viewed as precursors to climate abruptness.

During the transitional stages when the earth’s magnetic field shifted between a temporal normal and a negative period, the earth’s magnetic paleointensity fell correspondingly to a pair of minima. “

By correlating our results with published regional and worldwide reports, 4 excursion events out of 10 apparent reversal signals (labeled from GT-1 to GT-10) were identified as excursion events coeval with the Mono Lake Event (28.4 kyr–25.8 kyr), Laschamp Event (43.3 kyr–40.5 kyr), Gaotai Event (82.8 kyr–72.4 kyr) and the Blake Event (127.4 kyr–113.3 kyr), respectively. GT-9 correlates with the above-mentioned Gaotai Event, GT-7 and GT-6 correspond to two stages of the Laschamp Event and GT-5 to the Mono Lake Event. It is noteworthy that the so-called Gaotai Event has not been reported as a pronounced paleomagnetic excursion in the Northwestern China.

http://eprints.whiterose.ac.uk/416/

Is the geodynamo process intrinsically unstable?

Recent palaeomagnetic studies suggest that excursions of the geomagnetic field, during which the intensity drops suddenly by a factor of 5-10 and the local direction changes dramatically, are more common than previously expected. The `normal’ state of the geomagnetic field, dominated by an axial dipole, seems to be interrupted every 30 to 100 kyr; it may not therefore be as stable as we thought.

Recent studies suggest that the Earth’s magnetic field has fallen dramatically in magnitude and changed direction repeatedly since the last reversal 700 kyr ago (Langereis et al. 1997; Lund et al. 1998). These important results paint a rather different picture of the long-term behaviour of the field from the conventional one of a steady dipole reversing at random intervals: instead, the field appears to spend up to 20 per cent of its time in a weak, non-dipole state (Lund et al. 1998).

Carla
Reply to  William Astley
June 26, 2020 12:34 pm

Any idea on WUWT
Remember the ‘spaceage high’, looks like it was clearly surpassed, atleast according to Bartols.
compare cosmic rays last minimum to this current minimum.
http://neutronm.bartol.udel.edu/~pyle/modplotTH.png
Does Oulu need to update their graph to reflect higher cosmic rays?
now compare to Oulu
comment image

ggm
Reply to  Brian Stratford
June 25, 2020 9:31 pm

It didn’t originate from Earth. This is from another star within the galaxy – a magentar, neutron star etc.

J-West
Reply to  ggm
June 26, 2020 2:20 pm

And you know this, how exactly?

J-West
Reply to  Brian Stratford
June 26, 2020 2:19 pm

Do you mean, Emmanuel Velokoski? The old BS artist?

June 25, 2020 6:58 pm

Galactic magnetic disturbance?

Charles Higley
Reply to  Bryan - oz4caster
June 26, 2020 6:57 am

A disturbance in the force, Luke.

Stewart Pid
June 25, 2020 6:59 pm

fElon Musks new truck backfired a magnetic storm!!

Mike McMillan
Reply to  Stewart Pid
June 26, 2020 1:07 am

Hundreds of soon-to-be-former DoJ and FBI officials erasing their emails and cell phones.

bj
Reply to  Mike McMillan
June 29, 2020 9:06 am

This is the likeliest of all theories i must admit 🙂

bj
Reply to  Stewart Pid
June 29, 2020 9:07 am

Or something to do with his starlink net being cast over the planet!!!???

Mickey Reno
June 25, 2020 7:08 pm

This reminds me of that wonderful scene in Kubrick’s “Dr. Strangelove” when Gen. Buck Turgidson gets a phone call in a motel room in which he’s engaged in a sexual dalliance with his secretary, Miss Scott, learns of Gen. Ripper’s use of Wing Attack, Plan R to attack the Soviets, and asks, what’s cooking on the threat board? Nothing? Nothing at all? Of course, in that story, the threat was every bit as real as the threat of CO2 in our atmosphere, a dastardly Commie plot to fluoridate our drinking water and our ice cream, children’s ice cream, Mandrake, in order to sap and corrupt our precious bodily fluids.

So what’s cooking on Jupiter? Has there been a very old, very distant gamma burst somewhere, or a collision between two black holes or pulsars? Or maybe… just maybe… did Bill McKibbon suddenly realize that 400 ppm of CO2 in the atmosphere is better than 350?

Uncle Max
June 25, 2020 7:10 pm

Surely that had no effect on the earthquakes a few days ago, right? Right?

Reply to  Uncle Max
June 25, 2020 7:25 pm

What time did the EQ occur?

Robert W. Turner
Reply to  Uncle Max
June 26, 2020 7:33 am

81 EQs 2.5+ on 6/23, that is noticeably more than average but don’t think it’s an outlier.

June 25, 2020 7:10 pm

It was caused by an a alien sneezing, after he/she/it caught COVID-19, while participating (as an experiment) in a Black-Lives-Matter protest, wearing a face mask that focused the sneeze into pressurized air columns escaping out of the sides of the mask, which then disrupted atmospheric air currents at a micro-scale that chaotically amplified into an upper atmospheric anomaly, producing an extreme momentary electrical difference between Earth and Sun, further producing an accompanying magnetic co-reaction.

This obviously does not happen that frequently.

Tom
Reply to  Robert Kernodle
June 26, 2020 6:30 am

Yep that’s what did it or could have been the backend of that meteor that came by a few weeks ago it’s ripples just now hit the earth

sendergreen
June 25, 2020 7:14 pm

C’mon this does not take a Nobel in Physics to figure out.

There’s only on fundamental source of energy that could do this.

Chuck Norris

noaaprogrammer
Reply to  sendergreen
June 25, 2020 9:44 pm

Nikola Tesla just turned over in his grave.

Reply to  noaaprogrammer
June 26, 2020 12:39 am

Why isn’t he in his own grave? Is he gay?

Admin
June 25, 2020 7:22 pm

I didn’t do it.

sycomputing
Reply to  Charles Rotter
June 26, 2020 7:44 am

He said with only a devious grin . . .

June 25, 2020 7:32 pm

Here’s a list of odd astronomical events occurring since the classic “flying saucer” craze of the late 1940s – 1950s.

Timeline of Odd Astronomical Events
late 1940s – 1960s
“Flying saucer” reports worldwide. “Area 54” incident

1960s – 2000s
abduction reports, airliner UFO reports

14 Feb 2014:
The Chelyabinsk meteor was a small asteroid — about the size of a six-story building — that broke up over the city of Chelyabinsk, Russia, on Feb. 15, 2013. The blast was stronger than a nuclear explosion, triggering detection from monitoring stations as far away as Antarctica. — Wikipedia

19 October 2017:
Oumuamua is the first known interstellar object detected passing through the Solar System. Formally designated 1I/2017 U1, it was discovered by Robert Weryk using the Pan-STARRS telescope at Haleakala Observatory, Hawaii, on 19 October 2017, 40 days after it passed its closest point to the Sun on 9 September.
Wikipedia

11 October 2018:
A meteor caused a massive explosion over China last year. It is the second-largest recorded impact in the past century, after the meteor that exploded over the Russian region of Chelyabinsk in 2013. The giant fireball hit at 2350 GMT on 18 December over the Bering Sea, a part of the Pacific Ocean between Russia and Alaska.

16 October 2019:
Hubble gives astronomers their best look yet at an interstellar visitor — comet 2I/Borisov — whose speed and trajectory indicate it has come from beyond our solar system. Comet 2I/Borisov is only the second such interstellar object known to have passed through the solar system.

23 June 2020:
Earth’s quiet magnetic field was unexpectedly disturbed by a wave of magnetism that rippled around much of the globe. There was no solar storm or geomagnetic storm to cause the disturbance.

I’m not saying it’s aliens, but….

MarkG
Reply to  James Schrumpf
June 25, 2020 7:55 pm

It’s going to be the next big scare: aliens are coming, and to stop them we must eliminate fossil fuels and pay more taxes. Because reasons.

Reply to  James Schrumpf
June 25, 2020 8:08 pm

Seriously, though, it looks like something similar happened in January of this year:

https://strangesounds.org/2020/01/mysterious-electrical-surge-magnetic-anomaly-ground-norway.html

This HAD to have caused COVID-19.

Oh yeah, I said “seriously”. Well, heck, I guess I blew that attempt.

Reply to  Robert Kernodle
June 25, 2020 9:18 pm

That one can be explained by a the observed sudden shift in the solar wind environment and its resulting geomagnetic disturbance causing electrons to dump out the Van Allan belts.

David
Reply to  James Schrumpf
June 26, 2020 4:11 am

It’s Area 51 and Studio 54. They are not quite the same thing.

Reply to  David
June 26, 2020 10:32 am

No, but strange events occurred in both places. Thanks for catching the type. Now if I could just fix it…

June 25, 2020 8:15 pm

Gojira!!

June 25, 2020 8:52 pm

Probably someone doing a classified experiment called radiation belt remediation (RBR) on the Van Allan radiation belts. The recent very quiet state of the geomagnetic environment was the perfect opportunity to test this on the Van Allan Radiation belts.radiation belt remediation (RBR) and know the effects seen are due to the experiment and not solar wind changes.

U.S. military tests radiation belt cleanup in space
by Richard Stone. Science 03 Jan 2020:Vol. 367, Issue 6473, pp. 9-10
DOI: 10.1126/science.367.6473.9

“Now, researchers are ready to try artificial remediation, by beaming radio waves into the belts. Physicists have tested using the U.S. Navy’s very low frequency (VLF) antenna towers, powerful facilities used to communicate with submarines, says Dan Baker, director of the Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics at the University of Colorado, Boulder, and a lead investigator on the Van Allen Probes. The antennae of the High-frequency Active Auroral Research Program in Alaska and the giant dish of the Arecibo Observatory in Puerto Rico might also be enlisted to generate cleansing radio beams.

An orbiting RBR platform, closer to the target, could be more effective. In June 2019, the U.S. Air Force launched what it bills as the largest uncrewed structure ever flown in space: the DSX dipole antenna. Nearly as long as a U.S. football field, DSX’s primary mission is to transmit VLF waves into the Van Allen belts and measure precipitating particles with onboard detectors. “It’s a new way to prod the belts and explore basic questions in space physics,” says DSX’s principal investigator, James McCollough at the Air Force Research Laboratory.

A team of scientists at Los Alamos and NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center is spearheading a second experiment in VLF precipitation. In April 2021, the team plans to launch a sounding rocket carrying the Beam Plasma Interactions Experiment, a miniature accelerator that would create a beam of electrons, which in turn would generate VLF waves capable of sweeping up particles. Reeves, who leads the experiment, believes the compact electron accelerator could ultimately be a better broom than a gigantic VLF antenna. “If we validate it with this experiment, we have a lot more confidence we can scale it up to higher power,” he says.

A third experiment would coax the atmosphere itself to kick up turbulent waves that would draw down electrons. In the summer of 2021, the Naval Research Laboratory plans to launch a mission called the Space Measurements of a Rocket-Released Turbulence. A sounding rocket will fly into the ionosphere—an atmospheric layer hundreds of kilometers up that’s awash in ions and electrons—and eject 1.5 kilograms of barium atoms. Ionized by sunlight, the barium would create a ring of moving plasma that emits radio waves: essentially a space version of a magnetron, the gadget used in microwave ovens.

The missions should help show which RBR system is most feasible, although an operational system may be years off. Whatever the technology, it could bring risks. A full-scale space cleanup might dump as much energy into the upper atmosphere as the geomagnetic storms caused by the Sun’s occasional eruptions. Like them, it could disrupt airplane navigation and communication. And it would spawn heaps of nitrogen oxides and hydrogen oxides, which could eat away at the stratospheric ozone layer. “We don’t know how great the effect would be,” says Allison Jaynes, a space physicist at the University of Iowa.

Besides safeguarding against a nuclear burst, RBR technology could have a civilian dividend, Jaynes notes. NASA and other space agencies have long wrestled with shielding astronauts from the Van Allen belts and other sources of radiation on their way to and from deep space. VLF transmitters might be used to clear out high-energy electrons just before a spacecraft enters a danger zone. “When we become more active space travelers,” she says, “it could provide a safe passage through the radiation belts.”

Also of note, the USAF launch its X-37B space plane back into orbit in May 16th for its OTV6 mission flight. This time it had a “service module” attached for expanded capability to carry more experiment to orbit.

According to the USSF/USAF Press release on OTV6, “This will be the first X-37B mission to use a service module to host experiments. The incorporation of a service module on this mission enables us to continue to expand the capabilities of the spacecraft and host more experiments than any of the previous missions.”
Read more here: https://www.spaceforce.mil/News/Article/2177702/next-x-37b-orbital-test-vehicle-scheduled-to-launch

Joel O'Bryan
Reply to  Joel O'Bryan
June 25, 2020 9:00 pm

On the DSX mission launched to orbit last year on a Falcon Heavy rocket:

“The spacecraft is equipped with a unique suite of technologies such as space weather sensors and graphite antenna booms used to conduct experiments with very-low frequency radio waves. ”

“DSX will conduct on-orbit experiments for at least a year, to include:
A set of experiments, called the Wave Particle Interaction Experiments, will investigate the influence of Very Low Frequency radio waves on energetic particle behavior within the MEO environment.
The Space Weather Experiments will measure and map the distribution of energetic particles and plasma in MEO to improve environment models for spacecraft design and operations.”

read more here:
https://www.af.mil/News/Article-Display/Article/1886564/air-force-research-laboratory-prepares-dsx-spacecraft-for-launch/

Reply to  Joel O'Bryan
June 25, 2020 10:50 pm

More technical stuff on the DSX platform-vehicle design and all its components.
https://directory.eoportal.org/web/eoportal/satellite-missions/d/dsx

Figure 9 in the above doc gives a hint of what might have been the cause of the 23 June anomaly.

Reply to  Joel O'Bryan
June 26, 2020 12:41 am

Looking at waveform of magnetic field vector, we can see 4 ELF transmissions, each about 3 minutes long, 10 minutes between transmission.
1: xmit on 0624 UTC, off 0627 UTC.
2.: xmit on 0634 UTC, off 0637 UTC.
3: xmit on 0644 UTC, off 0647 UTC.
4: xmit on 0654 UTC, off 0657 UTC.

~ 30 minutes.
And from the CONOPS of DSX-WPIx (Wave Particle Interaction Experiment):
“High power VLF transmission is limited to ±20º latitude about the equatorial plane and to less than 30 minutes. ”

Some tech savvy person tracking the DSX ephemeris data could easily check to see if the DSX sv was transiting the equatorial plane around the Prime Meridian around 0644 UTC on June 23, 2020.

You can track DSX live here:
https://www.n2yo.com/?s=44344&live=1

But I can’t find an easy way to see where it was on June 23 at 0645 UTC.

Ric Haldane
Reply to  Joel O'Bryan
June 26, 2020 6:55 am

Joel, there is a lot of misinformation about the Navy VLF program. When the navy wanted to communicate with submerged submarines, they hired RCA which did a lot of communication work for the Navy. My father was their top field engineer for what was at the time Project Sanguine. The antenna towers mentioned above were not built to transmit through the air but rather through the earth. That called for high conductivity areas, northern Wi. and MI. The power requirements were enormous requiring waist high, water cooled tubes. There were protests and some damage by a bunch of people that feared VLF. A Navy study found no problems. My father’s observations were that the trees loved it , worms not so much. Moving VLF through the earth is a very slow process. It could take 20 minutes or more to get enough code passed, so a sub could then surface and use conventional communication. The sub had to trail a very very long wire to use as an antenna. My father also got the chance to dive with Jacques Cousteau off the coast of California. I believe the cover story was they wanted to listen to the heartbeat of the earth. Congress did not fund the project until many years later when it became known as Project Elf. I believe that it was used during the first Gulf War. From memory, Raytheon replaced it with a better system.. There is some information about Project Elf on the internet. It was highly classified at the time so I don’t know the status at this time. I can say that there is a location that is never mentioned. My father never discussed the project but being my fathers son I had most it figured out at a very young age. The dive with Cousteau was a tip off as the cover story said that a bunch if scientists wanted to listen to the “heart beat of the earth”. One summer in the a far northern part on Wi. I was checking a 2.5 mile pair of twisted pair wires used as a receiving antenna for porcupine damage, a wolf was crossing a fire break. We were only about 30 feet from each other. We just looked art each other before the wolf did not sense danger and just walked away. I have had quite a childhood.

Reply to  Ric Haldane
June 28, 2020 3:23 pm

Thankyou for the education you know your fields

Michael
Reply to  Joel O'Bryan
June 26, 2020 11:36 am

Joel – fascinating posts mate. Thank you.

Dave N
June 25, 2020 8:54 pm

Paging David S Goyer..

Timothy McCann
June 25, 2020 9:04 pm

Obi-Wan: I felt a great disturbance in the Force, as if millions of voices suddenly cried out in …

THX1138
June 25, 2020 9:13 pm

We do, after all, live in an Electric Universe.

Tom in Florida
Reply to  THX1138
June 26, 2020 5:05 am

I am shocked that you would think that.

sycomputing
Reply to  Tom in Florida
June 26, 2020 7:47 am

Me too. Are you sure that information is current?

Zig Zag Wanderer
Reply to  sycomputing
June 26, 2020 11:42 am

What’s with this resistance?

Jack Okie
Reply to  THX1138
June 26, 2020 5:15 am

Well, at least somebody gets it.

Michael S. Kelly
June 25, 2020 9:16 pm

“Lately, Earth’s magnetic field has been quiet. Very quiet.”

A little…too quiet…

toorightmate
June 25, 2020 9:24 pm

Here it comes. A great big new tax on magnetic fields.
So, make sure your fields are non-magnetic.

John F. Hultquist
June 25, 2020 10:04 pm

Just to fill out the list of bogus reasons, I invoke Godwin’s law.

d
June 25, 2020 10:15 pm

Alien supralight drive upon departure from the solar system, having found no intelligent life worth talking to. Told them not to go to Disney.

J.R.O.
June 25, 2020 10:18 pm

It’s Trumps fault.

WR104
Reply to  J.R.O.
June 26, 2020 12:30 am

Yep, never would have happened if he hadn’t pulled us out of the Paris Climate Treaty.

oeman50
Reply to  J.R.O.
June 26, 2020 9:09 am

It’s CO2’s fault. It causes every other weather phenomenon, why not solar as well?

Earthling2
June 25, 2020 10:45 pm

Very interesting. Maybe the Earth’s solid nickel/iron core ‘slipped’ a hair, which is driving the acceleration of the wandering magnetic poles. All pure conjuncture, but solar maximums and minimums do have a significant effect on our local magnetosphere, which must have some bearing on the nickel iron core which produces the the local magnetic field from the rotation of the good Earth. We don’t even fully understand how all this interacts with short term weather or long term climate, most everyone now believing that CO2 is the principal driver responsible for everything. Will be interesting to see what unfolds the next year with any measurable result of the magnetic pole speeding up, slowing down or changing direction, if it isn’t HAARP related.

It would be hard to think that could produce any significant detectable result of any kind, considering it only is powered by 3.6 megawatts of power. HAARP is the most powerful ionospheric heater in the world, but could a measly 3,600 kW generate that type of a wave of magnetism that rippled around much of the globe? I don’t know…but it sure would feed the conspiracy theory’s. China better behave, or we will turn the beam on them. Let’s go with that explanation.

one voice
June 26, 2020 12:57 am

Solar Breeze makes me feel fine… Cool and informative as always! TYVM

Chaswarnertoo
June 26, 2020 1:12 am

Normally lost in solar clutter… So, we have little idea of how normal these events are.
But it is Chuck.

paul courtney
Reply to  Chaswarnertoo
June 26, 2020 9:57 am

Chas: Look, we’ve got reams of data over 30 minutes, the science is settled- human caused magnetic alteration (AMA) will destroy us, better shut down economy and hand what’s left to our progressive betters.

Rod Evans
June 26, 2020 1:21 am

Brings a whole new meaning to “May the farce be with you”

Ed Zuiderwijk
June 26, 2020 1:48 am

If that pin was made of steel, maybe dropping it causes a ripple in the local magnetic field. Just saying … They say in Preston (20 miles down the road) of people placing (small) bets on horses that they are ‘having a flutter’. To me it now has a whole new meaning.

Vuk
June 26, 2020 2:07 am

The most likely reason is that the Earth’s magnetosphere was swiped by a sharp transition in the heleispheric current polarity.
https://www.swpc.noaa.gov/communities/space-weather-enthusiasts-dashboard
These are common regular low intensity events, normally masked by various solar magnetic activity of a grater magnitude. Nothing much to be excited about.
comment image

Carla
Reply to  Vuk
June 26, 2020 12:29 pm

I agree, Vuk. The solar magnetic field change was from Toward to Away at 12:55 on June 23rd 2020.
https://www.swpc.noaa.gov/products/real-time-solar-wind

But experiments into the radiation belts also produce effects like raining particles.

U.S. military tests radiation belt cleanup in space
by Richard Stone. Science 03 Jan 2020:Vol. 367, Issue 6473, pp. 9-10
DOI: 10.1126/science.367.6473.9

“Now, researchers are ready to try artificial remediation, by beaming radio waves into the belts.

Vuk
Reply to  Carla
June 26, 2020 1:49 pm

Hi Carka
Nice to hear from you again, hope all is well. Take care and stay safe.
vuk

a happy little debunker
June 26, 2020 2:57 am

‘I felt a great disturbance in the Force, as if hundreds of monuments suddenly cried out in terror and were suddenly silenced. I fear something terrible has happened.’

June 26, 2020 2:58 am

So much science out there – and nobody can explain anything about this?!
No wonder climate vodoo men get away with calling their business “settled science”.
Will I have to consult my grandmother again and have their asses whopped?!

Sara
June 26, 2020 4:31 am

Okay, okay, I admit it: it’s my fault.

I was trying to pick up a long range radio signal last week, something like Moscow or maybe Baltimore or Rekjavik, because the heaviside layers were elevated enough to allow it. Everything was going smoothly until my cat found the antenna wire and moved it. Disrupted everything, and started that mag wave ball rolling.

Sorry about that. I’ve scolded her, but you know cats: they yawn, look at you like you’re asking them to eat lettuce instead of FF Chicken, and go right back to whatever they were doing. I had to put her outside the bathroom and shut the door. She’s still mad at me, too.

Reply to  Sara
June 26, 2020 6:21 pm

Lol.

You know how we know the Earth isn’t flat? It it was, cats would have knocked everything off by now.

June 26, 2020 5:15 am

Another magnetar shrugged?

Intriguing!?

Loren C. Wilson
June 26, 2020 6:52 am

is this the magnetic field equivalent to stall flutter in fluid dynamics? Stall flutter was the cause of the Tacoma bridge collapse. Air flow from a constant wind passing the towers produced vortexes that then were shed at regular periods, imparting a force on the tower. The velocity of the wind was just right to produce shedding at the resonant frequency of the bridge.

Gums
June 26, 2020 7:18 am

Salute!

Actchally, it was likely the change in our local space-time when the alien mothership dropped outta hyperspace.
Where is the NEO outfit looking now?

Gums wonders……

Olen
June 26, 2020 8:44 am

According to the comments, when aliens show themselves they have a lot of explaining to do. How dare they mess with my Milgauss watch.

tom0mason
June 26, 2020 8:47 am
Esther Cook
June 26, 2020 9:08 am

Several sensible possibilities. I would like to know whether anything special happened with 5G that day.

Neo
June 26, 2020 9:15 am

If Betelgeuse lights up the sky in the next few day, weeks like a second sun, we will know this was the precursor of a supernova.

Rob_Dawg
Reply to  Neo
June 26, 2020 1:12 pm

Wouldn’t the gamma spectrum get here first?

Greg61
June 26, 2020 1:49 pm

There’s only one explanation – he’s coming
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TvQWBXJOgAI
(BOC – Godzilla)

Reply to  Greg61
June 26, 2020 4:25 pm

That’s what I said upthread, but I used his proper name. 😉

June 26, 2020 2:38 pm

This article is making a mountain of a signal out of a molehill of pulses. It certainly did not ‘rock’ the Earth’s magnetism, as the title implies: “Weird: Out of Nowhere, Something Just Rocked Earth’s Magnetic Field”
And it really has nothing to do with Earth’s currently quiet magnetic field:
“Lately, Earth’s magnetic field has been quiet. Very quiet. The sun is in the pits of what may turn out to be the deepest Solar Minimum in a century.”

The sunspot count is currently zero (because we are in a solar minimum between cycles 24 and 25). But the solar flux index (SFI) currently stands about 68, which is about 4 index points above the lowest flux index recorded during the last solar minimum (between cycles 23 and 24). Still a way to go before we can claim ‘deepest’ minimum:
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2008/07/16/sun-in-deep-slumber-107-solar-flux-hits-record-low-value/

Also, I would like to point out that it is not the strength per se of the Sun’s magnetic field that causes geomagnetic storms. Geomag storms are defined by the change (“disturbance”) in the Earth’s magnetic field caused by changes in ring currents, induced by increased flow of solar wind protons and electrons.

A geomagnetic storm is defined by changes in the Dst (disturbance – storm time) index. The Dst index estimates the globally averaged change of the horizontal component of the Earth’s magnetic field at the magnetic equator based on measurements from a few magnetometer stations. Dst is computed once per hour and reported in near-real-time. During quiet times, Dst is between +20 and −20 nano-Tesla (nT).
A geomagnetic storm has three phases: initial, main and recovery. The initial phase is characterized by Dst (or its one-minute component SYM-H) increasing by 20 to 50 nT in tens of minutes. The initial phase is also referred to as a storm sudden commencement (SSC). However, not all geomagnetic storms have an initial phase and not all sudden increases in Dst or SYM-H are followed by a geomagnetic storm. The main phase of a geomagnetic storm is defined by Dst decreasing to less than −50 nT. The selection of −50 nT to define a storm is somewhat arbitrary. The minimum value during a storm will be between −50 and approximately −600 nT. The duration of the main phase is typically 2–8 hours. The recovery phase is when Dst changes from its minimum value to its quiet time value. The recovery phase may last as short as 8 hours or as long as 7 days.
The size of a geomagnetic storm is classified as moderate (−50 nT > minimum of Dst > −100 nT), intense (−100 nT > minimum Dst > −250 nT) or super-storm (minimum of Dst < −250 nT).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geomagnetic_storm

So, the increased ring currents create their own magnetic field, which _opposes_ the Earth’s magnetic field. That is why storms are defined by negative disturbances.

Now back to the pulsations observed by the two amateur observers (Green and Stammes) on 23 June 0600-0700 UTC. I see nothing remarkable about these signals, except that they are very tiny. If we zoom in to that exact hour, I think we can see them here on this USGS plot, which lists the USGS stations sorted by descending Northern latitude (because the disturbances tend to increase towards the poles).

But you can see tiny sinusoidal pulses like these virtually everywhere, between the big disturbances. (Look at 12 June around 0800 UTC for example). What is so special about the 23 June pulses?

Channel “F” (total magnetic field) [Note changes in field at mid latitudes are much less than -50nt, so way below ‘storm’ grade disturbances]
https://geomag.usgs.gov/plots/?scale=10&endTime=2020-06-23T07:00:00.000Z&startTime=2020-06-23T06:00:00.000Z&timeRangeType=custom&channels=F
Channel “Y” (north component, which is smaller, but makes pulsation look relatively bigger)
https://geomag.usgs.gov/plots/?scale=10&endTime=2020-06-23T23:00:00.000Z&startTime=2020-06-23T00:00:00.000Z&timeRangeType=custom&channels=Y

But if you zoom out, and look at magnetic ‘disturbances’, over the whole month of June, you can see numerous events exceeding negative a hundred or so nano-tesla’s. I would say that is fairly ‘noisy’ for disturbance plots during a solar minimum. The pulsations were about 10nt-20nt, so completely swamped by this activity.
https://geomag.usgs.gov/plots/?channels=MDT&scale=Auto&timeRangeType=custom&channel=F&endTime=2020-06-26T20:30:00.000Z&startTime=2020-06-01T20:30:00.000Z

Reply to  Johanus
June 26, 2020 3:52 pm

What about the current F10.7 cm flux staying as low as it is for this extra length of time? … https://www.spaceweatherlive.com/en/solar-activity/solar-cycle

Currently it looks to be running 6 months longer at this low point as compared to the last long minimum. It has yet to show a move towards rising off of the bottom. I am not familiar enough with previous minima to know how to assess that, but it looks like it is going to stay low for awhile longer.

Reply to  Johanus
June 26, 2020 5:06 pm


“… staying as low as it is for this extra length of time?”

Solar magnetic activity is measured by intensity (or lack) of solar flux. The time span of activity further characterizes the nature of this activity, but IMHO does not really measure the intensity of activity.

So the previous solar minimum will be “deeper” if this one never descends down to ~64SFI, which is the theoretical minimum SFI.

June 26, 2020 3:40 pm

Here is something of interest to this post. A powerful 7.4 quake struck southern Mexico at 15:30 UTC on the 23rd. That would be 9 hours after the magnetic disturbance. In 4 days from now on the 30th the 7 planet alignment will be at peak alignment. Earth and Mercury will be in conjunction. Venus and Saturn will be in conjunction, and Jupiter will be very close to conjunction with Pluto. … https://mgvez.github.io/jsorrery/

rleewinters
Reply to  goldminor
June 26, 2020 6:21 pm

Sounds like a bad case of conjunctivitis to me. Will it produce pink sunsets?

Reply to  rleewinters
June 26, 2020 7:51 pm

We shall have to wait and zee.

DONNA K BECKER
Reply to  rleewinters
June 27, 2020 10:04 am

I observed one just last evening.

cinaed
June 26, 2020 7:12 pm

In an odd solar cycle. the Sun’s magnetic field is pointing south which means it can cancel part of the Earth’s magnetic field at the point of contact – creating a crack in the Earth’s int the magnetic field which allow the solar wind to enter into the Earth’s atmosphere rattling our magnetic cage.

See https://spaceweather.com/glossary/bsubz.html.

mitch slagghorn
June 27, 2020 5:42 am

ancient black hole plasma accretion wake, could be.
very likely contributed to the recent seismic activity too.
(unless CERN ramped up recently, but they usually unglue
India and Pakistan pretty good)

anon
June 27, 2020 9:53 am

The name is ‘Nemesis’, our second sun.
Other names for this brown dwarf and its satellites include:
Planet X
Nibiru
Hercolubus
Wormwood,
Mother Shipton’s fiery dragon etc

Here’s an excellent website which has a lot of info for those who want to know more about this
https://yowusa.com/

Did you know that almost all major observatories are offline due to the virus?
https://astronomy.com/news/2020/04/covid-19-forces-earths-largest-telescopes-to-close

Here’s some recent photos of the system
https://yowusa.com/2020/03/coronavirus-planet-x/

And an interview with Marshall Masters explaining what those photos mean
https://yowusa.com/2020/03/march-madness-nibiru/
https://pastebin.com/VriSCRHh

Bob Fletcher has done a lot of research on this
https://pastebin.com/W7diHHqv

It does not matter if you think this is crazy conspiracy crap or whatever.
It’s coming and the only course of action to take is the spiritual path
Look up the Hopi prophesy on the Red and Blue Kachinas
We’re nearly reached the end of the Kali Yuga

Here’s your ‘official’ notifcation from the controllers:

DONNA K BECKER
June 27, 2020 10:06 am

I observed one just last evening.

Neo
June 27, 2020 7:23 pm

Any chance that this story links in ?

22 /23 June 2020, RN #IMS station SEP63 #Sweden detected 3isotopes; Cs-134, Cs-137 & Ru-103 associated w/Nuclear fission @ higher[ ] than usual levels (but not harmful for human health). The possible source region in the 72h preceding detection is shown in orange on the map.
https://twitter.com/SinaZerbo/status/1276559857731153921

Reply to  Neo
June 28, 2020 5:34 pm

Someone may be reprocessing spent nuclear fuel into weapons-grade material.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fission_products_(by_element)

This kind of reprocessing has absolutely nothing to do with the magnetic disturbances reported on 23 June.

Reply to  Johanus
June 29, 2020 2:49 am
June 29, 2020 5:40 am

It’s coming and the only course of action to take is the spiritual path

June 29, 2020 10:49 am

No such thing as a “wave of magnetism”

You cant uncouple magnetic influence from it’s source. Any claim to the contrary is pseudo science

Reply to  Mark - Helsinki
June 30, 2020 8:44 am

“You cant uncouple magnetic influence from it’s source.”

Actually it can; have you ever heard of “IMF”? (hint: not ‘impossible-mission force’)

IMF is the interplanetary magnetic field, whose source is the Sun.

The Sun’s magnetic field isn’t confined to the immediate vicinity of our star. The solar wind carries it throughout the solar system. Out among the planets we call the Sun’s magnetic field the “Interplanetary Magnetic Field” or “IMF.” Because the Sun rotates (once every 27 days) the IMF has a spiral shape — named the “Parker spiral” after the scientist who first described it.

https://spaceweather.com/glossary/imf.html

Here is a 3D rendering of the IMF, based on an old drawing made by Leif Svalgaard in the early 1970’s. [Leif was a pioneer in this area of solar research]
http://wso.stanford.edu/gifs/HCS.html
https://ntrs.nasa.gov/archive/nasa/casi.ntrs.nasa.gov/19740023171.pdf

Reply to  Mark - Helsinki
June 30, 2020 10:40 am

re: “You cant uncouple magnetic influence from it’s source.”

Statically, yes, BUT even a ‘static’ source had a beginning (OR, if it is physically moved), so in the long run it is changing, which is the basis for “radiating” a wave, an EM or electromagnetic wave.

I do it everyday via a dipole (or loop) antenna, and so do you via a smart/i phone or a WiFi client.

See: Maxwell’s Eqs

Walter Lewan (MIT) Maxwell’s Eqs
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nFtNCPUMoYA&feature=youtu.be&t=68

WAV01: Maxwell’s Equations, Greg Durgin

Reply to  Mark - Helsinki
June 30, 2020 12:27 pm

Everything you want to know about IMF-Earth ‘magnetic reconnection’ (and more):
http://cedarweb.vsp.ucar.edu/wiki/images/c/ce/2016GEM_Sunday_Reconnection.pdf

John Bruyn
July 2, 2020 1:01 am

This event seems to close to the solstice and Earth lapping Jupiter and Saturn in July to be ignored. Could it reflect a slight change in Earth’s orbit or obliquity?

July 2, 2020 1:06 pm

I’m not here preaching, but the things going on present day are biblical in my opinion.
Maybe prophetic would be a better term.

Nostradamus, Mayans, Bible, Steven Spielberg, whatever you believe in, just take a look at the world and universe. Big change is inevitable, and we’ve only just begun…

🤘☣️🤘🏿👻😈