» Home > In the News

Solar Storm Whales

29 February 2020
Electromagnetism

This story comes from https://spaceweather.com (February 28th 2020) … the surprising way solar storms beach grey whales. They strand themselves on beaches for no apparent reason. No sign of injury, or illness, and no evidence of naval sonar in the vicinity. They just seem to get lost. The answer may have been found by researchers from Duke University and Adler Planetarium. Their results are published in Current Biology. Whales seem to have an internal compass. This allows them to navigate using magnetic fields much like birds and bees and various other animals. This means whales, being big creatures, are vulnerable to space weather. During geomagnetic storms the shifts in magetic field lines may confuse their internal compasses. Radio operaters experience a lot of static in their headphones after a solar flare and something like this may disorient the whales. With a temporary inability to navigate they end up stranded on shorelines …

                                                                             … and having said all that on the 29th, Saturday, we have the solar wind causing an aurora over Finland …

 

Skip to content