Blogcritics: Comments on Magnetosphere Project - NASA Update

Comment by Bennett Dawson

Sat, 7 May 2005 12:58:01 EDT

Random House time.... uh, Imminent. Gotta love it when you let a spell checker put the wrong word in your mouth. :-] As immanent has connotations of "Diety" and "transcendant", it would be way beyond my abilities to use correctly. Thanks for the note, and a spelling lesson. Bennett

Comment by LD

Sat, 7 May 2005 12:50:59 EDT

"Our magnetic field is showing signs of an immanent pole shift" Do you mean immanent or imminent? Both words can make sense in this context, but I lean toward the second and its meaning. For some reason the distinction of your meaning is important to me.

Comment by Bennett Dawson

Thu, 5 May 2005 20:30:00 EDT

Yeah yeah Temple, I thought of that, like "Who uses a compass anymore?". My alternate sub head was: "When North Becomes South, will Texans become Yankees?" Whaddayathink?

Comment by Temple Stark

Thu, 5 May 2005 20:11:55 EDT

I sniff the GPS's lobby dirty hand in all this. PS - Panty-wadders - that's a joke. Seriously though you could have some seriously lost people - think of all the compasses out there.

Comment by Bennett Dawson

Thu, 5 May 2005 11:18:04 EDT

Cool Eric. It is fun for me, and the writing is becoming more coherent with each post. I had to visit several different sites for the numbers for first part of this article. Hard-core physics discussion boards... Ow, my brain aches. Worth mentioning, there are a ton of seriously whacked folks who think that the Earth and Mars collided eons ago, and that the dinosaurs fell off of Mars during the collision, and then died in our "alien atmosphere"..... I kid you not!

Comment by Eric Olsen

Thu, 5 May 2005 11:02:07 EDT

just do what interests you most - no need to get bogged down or feel obligated - thanks again!

Comment by Bennett Dawson

Thu, 5 May 2005 10:59:13 EDT

EO, there's so much going on right now that it'll take a few weeks to update all of the ongoing missions. "Beam Me To Mars" is next, what a great story THAT is...

Comment by Eric Olsen

Thu, 5 May 2005 10:51:42 EDT

super Bennett, really appreciate your keeping up the "space beat"!

Comment by Bennett Dawson

Thu, 5 May 2005 10:47:43 EDT

"peace will guide the planets, and love will steer the stars." Oh man Duane, THAT is funny. Thanks! Interesting point about the current orientation of the magnetosphere, I didn't know that.

Comment by Duane

Thu, 5 May 2005 09:55:50 EDT

Technically, RJ, the geographic poles and the magnetic poles have never coincided. The geographic poles are defined as those two points where the spin axis of the Earth pierces the surface (in a mathematical sense). They don't move. Maps are oriented according to the geographic pole. Your compass points "North" because the magnetic and geographic poles are reasonably close together. The magnetic poles wander around. They always have, as far as anyone can tell. But here's something strange that I didn't know until recently. The North magnetic pole of the Earth is, technically, a south pole, because the field lines point inwards toward the surface there. At the so-called South magnetic pole, field lines point outward, making the South pole, technically, a north pole. When the poles reverse, all will be put back the way it's supposed to be. Then peace will guide the planets, and love will steer the stars.

Comment by RJ

Thu, 5 May 2005 08:51:28 EDT

Hmm. Say this happens tomorrow. Will I then be technically going SOUTH if I drive from Florida to New York?