{"id":272318,"date":"2025-07-18T15:04:10","date_gmt":"2025-07-18T15:04:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/272318\/"},"modified":"2025-07-18T15:04:10","modified_gmt":"2025-07-18T15:04:10","slug":"its-growing-vast-anomaly-on-earth-affects-america-from-above","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/272318\/","title":{"rendered":"It\u2019s growing \u2014 Vast anomaly on Earth affects America from above"},"content":{"rendered":"

You\u2019ve probably never felt it. But up there, above the clouds, the ozone layer, and any GPS satellite, a vast anomaly is growing<\/strong>. For decades, scientists have observed a flaw \u2014 subtle but persistent \u2014 in Earth\u2019s magnetic field. Something that seemed static, but is now expanding and splitting. And most intriguingly, it hovers directly over South America and the South Atlantic. A weak spot in our planetary shield. Literally. This phenomenon, in fact, is gaining NASA\u2019s attention and is more than a scientific curiosity. After all, it affects satellites, causes failures in high-precision instruments, and even forces engineers to create increasingly elaborate contingency plans.<\/p>\n

When Earth\u2019s magnetic shield starts to glitch<\/p>\n

Earth is surrounded by a magnetic field<\/strong>, a kind of invisible bubble that protects us from the constant bombardment of charged solar particles. Without it, we would be exposed to dangerous levels of radiation. Thanks to this shield that we have a stable atmosphere, satellite communications, and even the Northern Lights.<\/p>\n

And of course, this field doesn\u2019t appear by magic: it is generated by the movement of molten iron in the Earth\u2019s outer core, thousands of kilometers deep. This process, called a geodynamo, creates electric currents that power our magnetic field. But, like everything else on our planet, it isn\u2019t perfectly uniform.<\/p>\n

This is because several factors affect the stability of this field. One of them is a huge structure of dense rock, called the African Large Low Shear Velocity Province (LLSVP)<\/strong>, located beneath the African continent. It interferes with the generation of the field so significantly that, combined with the natural tilt of the Earth\u2019s magnetic axis, it results in a region with much lower magnetic intensity.<\/p>\n

The South Atlantic Anomaly \u2014 A pothole in space<\/p>\n

This is precisely where the story\u2019s main character comes in: the South Atlantic Anomaly (SAA). It\u2019s nothing more than a vast area in the sky, between South America and southern Africa, where Earth\u2019s magnetic field is dramatically weaker <\/strong>than anywhere else on the planet. In fact, NASA often compares it to a \u201cpothole\u201d\u2014a hole in the asphalt. Only, in this case, the hole is in the magnetic field itself. And this \u201cflat tire\u201d is getting bigger (no wonder NASA is on alert for this anomaly reaching the US).<\/a><\/p>\n

How do we know this? Well, when satellites pass through this region, they encounter a shower of high-energy solar particles. This means equipment can fail, sensors can reset, and entire data can be lost. The International Space Station (ISS), for example, passes through the SAA on all its orbits, and although astronauts are protected, external instruments like the GEDI (which measures forests) require extra caution.<\/p>\n

And what\u2019s more: since 2020, scientists have noticed that the anomaly is splitting into two distinct zones<\/strong>, each with its own center of minimum magnetic intensity.<\/p>\n

Watching the invisible (before it changes everything)<\/p>\n

At least we can already say that NASA is already closely monitoring everything<\/strong>. In fact, we already have some missions monitoring the SAA in real time, such as ICON, GEDI, Swarm, and others. Furthermore, data from long ago, like that collected by the SAMPEX mission, feed predictive models that help engineers plan future missions and protect satellites.<\/p>\n

And here\u2019s a very important point: even though the South Atlantic Anomaly doesn\u2019t directly affect life on Earth\u2019s surface, it shows us something powerful: our planet is dynamic, changeable, even in its deepest and most invisible systems. This phenomenon will be something NASA won\u2019t be able to take its eyes off; another, in fact, is a galaxy we momentarily forgot to observe, and now all that\u2019s left is a black hole.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"You\u2019ve probably never felt it. But up there, above the clouds, the ozone layer, and any GPS satellite,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":272319,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3844],"tags":[70,413,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-272318","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-space","8":"tag-science","9":"tag-space","10":"tag-uk","11":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114874853987913292","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/272318","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=272318"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/272318\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/272319"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=272318"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=272318"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=272318"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}