(21)    Sat 4 Oct 97 19:27
By: blanche@netaxs.com
To: Alan Presley
Re: NASA and the Magnetic Field
St:
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From: blanche@netaxs.com (Blanche Nonken)
Subject: NASA and the Magnetic Field



X-Ftn-To: Alan Presley

Alan, I asked Bill Gawne over at NASA about your allegations on
an internet relay chat forum called #callahans.  The following is
in the live on-line forum format.  If it's too difficult for you
to figure out, let me know and I'll try and edit into something
you can understand.

The participants are Bill Gawne, my friend John Williams (his
handle is TeeCee) and another aquaintance with the handle of
GreyMan.  My handle on this conference is "momblanch."

<momblanch> Bill, I need a fairly simple answer to a question
relating to something a very gullible 15 year old is insisting
on.  Has Nasa done research on the Magnetic Field running out,
and all life on earth being predicted to end in 700 years?

<BillGawne> Blanche: Not that I know of, no

 * GreyMan wonders what the magnetic field reversal has to do
with life ending.

<BillGawne> GM: If the B field went away, we'd lose the
magnetosphere, which would dissipate the Van Allen belts and let
in a lot more cosmic ray flux down into the lower atmosphere.
Wouldn't end life, I don't imagine, but it'd up the mutation
rates.

<GreyMan> BillG: aha.  But how long does that last during the
normal "cyclic" (??) magnetic field reversal?

<BillGawne> Blanche: It's one of those outlandish claims that is
just plausible enough to sound true.  But I don't know of anybody
at Goddard (where it would most likely have been done) doing such
a thing.

<BillGawne> GM: You mean the field reversal that occurs on a
timescale of ~70 million years?

<GreyMan> BillG: uh, yeah, that's the one.  It killed the
dinosaurs because their compasses stopped working, right?

<TeeCee> Bill- I thought it was shorter than that?

<BillGawne> TC: Might be.  That's from memory.

<TeeCee> If it were seventy + million years I don't think it
would leave the magnetic track it does on the mid ocean spreading
ridges?

<BillGawne> Yeah, I was wrong.  It happens at irregular
intervals, thousands to hundreds of thousands of years apart.

<TeeCee> Bill - That's a lot closer that I thought it was.  I
thought it was about a million years apart.  So much for both our
memories.  <shrug>

<BillGawne> and yes, the magnetosphere does weaken significantly
at those times, with corresponding increase in cosmic ray
activity.

<BillGawne> and yes, the magnetosphere does weaken significantly
at those times, with corresponding increase in cosmic ray
activity.

(At this point I asked Bill if I had his permission to tell you
what he did.)

<BillGawne> Blanche: Yes, certainly.  Tell him that I'm an
associate astronomer with the Explorer Projects, contracted under
the Allied-Signal to NASA support contract.

<BillGawne> Blanche: You can find MTPE off
http://www.gsfc.nasa.gov

<TeeCee> Bill: I mentioned to Blanche the other night that I
doubt that anything much is going to quiet the kid.  Most likely
he's into the attention he gets from playing chicken little.

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