The sun’s effect on the Earth’s magnetic field

Part of the inspiration for my novel, Spires of Aurora, was a nature special show I saw on tv regarding the brown/black out we experienced back in 1996.  My future wife and I were driving from Michigan to Boston and remember seeing aurora borealis.  This was a first for many, I imagine, that far south.  Any hue, I watched the special and was intrigued that, since that event, space weather had become a concern for the Department of Defense.  The influx of ions from that coronal mass ejection (CME) brought down a fairly large chunk of our electrical grid.

Since that initial program, I have been interested in geomagnetic reversal, as well.  Scientists believe that every couple hundred thousand years, the Earth’s magnetic poles flip.  As you may know, the planet is shielded from the potentially destructive solar winds by its magnetic field.  If and when the poles flip, the effects upon the Earth are largely unknown.  How fast do they flip?  What havoc will the solar winds reap?  What would happen to the Earth’s inhabitants?  All good fodder for science fiction

In my novel, the planet Aurora is an Earth-like place, but with a crumby protective magnetic field … or did the Earth simply drop its guard forsaking us all???

#solarflare #spiresofaurora