The South Atlantic Anomaly

In responding to a U2U question from another ATS member, I mentioned the South Atlantic Anomaly. With all that has been discussed on this site, has that been a topic before? Is anyone interested in it? It seems that the more "scientific" the thread I make, the less response I get. However, I found it very curious when I first joined the space program, and we used to have all kinds of scientists and astronauts debate for hours about it.

If so, I will do my best to discuss it.

reply to post by Truth1000


Go ahead, tell us about it. Thanks in advance.

sorry to bother here, but aren't you talking about the south pacific hub-bub that's said to be going on?
there's a thread or two here on it if it helps. (apologies if there's also an Atlantic anomaly)
cheers.

edit: alright, thanks for sharing info on the SA anomaly. adding to list of items to research. thx.

reply to post by Truth1000


I'm All Ears.....

Fire Away

Third Line

Yes please!!

I wouldn't mind a discussion. My first question would be, Is it moving? And if so, what will be the short-term and long-term effects?

*is its location changing relative to the earth might be a better way to ask that.

I did a quick look - found a thread mentioning it with regard to pole shift Also another thread from a couple of years ago with regard to a plane disappearance.

However, neither really contained any in-depth analysis or explanation of the anomaly itself. So, count me among those that would like to know more.

What were the debates?

Going back to the first American satellite, the Explorer I, the U.S. was interested in the Van Allen belts of radiation, related to the magnetic effects of our planet. While Sputnik was just a radio transmitter that sent bleeps back to Earth, the Explorer I had four wires protruding from the satellite's body, to detect these previously hypothesized magnetic belts. Explorer I did confirm their existince and thus the satellite mission was a success.

As time passed, we began to notice that the radiation was not evenly dispersed. In fact, deep over the Southern Atlantic Ocean, there was a large "pocket" of ionizing radiation that seemed to just hover in space over that region. Even in the early days of the shuttle, we didn't recognize how powerful these were. We allowed to astronauts on an EVA to traverse a hefty segment of the South Atlantic Anomaly. It turned out that in the seven minutes the astronauts were in the Anomaly, they recorded an exposure to more radiation than the Spacelab astronauts had registered in 3 months aboard that early space station!

We then began to perform experiments to try to explain why the South Atlantic Anomaly exists, but have never been able to explain all aspects of the mysterious radiation zone.

Yeah, I agree with the posters above, I'm interested to hear what you have.

Always open to look into anomalies, haven't heard much about this particular one...

reply to post by Truth1000


Oh, hadn't heard of that before, thanks for responding. Do you know the location in which this anomaly occurs, and is it a constant, or does it shift/fluctuate?

I wonder if it corresponds in any way or is related to other anomalous zones, such as the Bermuda Triangle, etc?

OK, don't stop now, lol. This "anomoly" could be an entirely natural thing we just didn't know about. There is so much we don't know about. Obviously there's even more we just don't understand.

Sooooo All ears here.

Thanks for the reply. Why was the US interested in this in the first place, how did they know it existed?

Does the earths magnetic field have anything to do with it? That is alot of radiation, what would cause it to concentrate there?

Therer are an enormous number of locations across the planet with unique and significant findings. If you study flight maps, you will find designated areas of localized magnetic and other anomalies, with warnings for those who are only Instrument Flight rated, because their altimeters and compasses may not be reliable in these areas. These are generally considered to be secondary to structural anomalies in the ground plates below the surface, metallic or other deposits that have enough energy to distort the normal electro-magnetic signals, etc. There are other ionizing radiation sites that have been noted by both NASA and NOAA.

Flying out of the Cape, there are a number of locations of this type to the east. And east of Florida is the Bermuda Triangle. Some of these effects were notable enough that certain highly sensitive electronic gear on satellites had to be shielded through the launch phase as the rockets left the Cape eastrward toward space.

As our understanding of these kinds of effects grew, we did experiments where we released metallic wires to drag behind the orbiters on shuttle missions, and discovered that these metallic wires passing through even routine near-Earth orbits could generate amazing amounts of electricity. Still as impressive as those findings were, when those wires passed through the South Atlantic Anomaly, the generated signals could increase by ORDERS OF MAGNITUDE! That caught the attention of all kinds of people, including those otherwise not associated with NASA.

From purely a theoritical standpoint, floating magnetoes that could harness this electricity and transfer it to Earth by microwave transmission, LASER transmissions, etc., could be a long-term and cheap means of producing electricty for people on islands, or even in South America, should someone one day choose to pursue such a project. However, with our "current" technology (pun intended) it remains impractical.

The South Atlantic Anomaly is a weak point in the earth's magnetic field, allowing radiation to seep deeper into the magnetosphere. As far as I know, it doesn't move, but it covers a large portion of the southern hemisphere...

www.astro.psu.edu...

Also, it's recently been expanding, which isn't surprising, considering the entire magnetic field of the earth appears to be in a bit of a slump these days.

There's you a start.

Let's see what you guys can figure out.

reply to post by CLPrime


Are there other areas like the South Atlantic? Could you find a link showing them?

reply to post by Truth1000


Pockets of ionizing radiation? Like the ionosphere? Wouldn't that be the same thing?

I wonder if the South Atlantic Anomaly had anything to do with the Air France crash in June 2009.

Here is some more general information, granted it is not the best reference site, lol, but it explains it pretty well and there are two more articles if you look at the area below the article: .

www.redicecreations.com...

To me the anomaly sort of reminds me of Jupiters spot, a permanent storm, only magnetic? Could there be some sort of vortex in the molten area of Earths core that does not move?