re: #559 jdog29

What would call the previous teaching for all those years on the earth’s magnetic field in light of the article I linked to earlier?

Well, let’s go to the Science Overlord who announced the new discoveries for that: Leaks Found in Earth’s Protective Magnetic Field.

Essentially, the Earth’s magnetic shield is at its strongest when scientists had thought it would be at its weakest.

When the fields aren’t aligned, “the shield is up and very few particles come in,” said physicist Jimmy Raeder of the University of New Hampshire in Durham. Conversely, when the fields are aligned, it creates “a huge breach, and there’s lots and lots of particles coming in,” Raeder added, at the news conference.

As it orbited Earth, THEMIS’s five spacecraft were able to estimate the thickness of the band of solar particles coming when the fields were aligned — it turned out to be about 20 times the number that got in when the fields were anti-aligned.

THEMIS was able to make these measurements as it moved through the band, with two spacecraft on different borders of the band; the band turned out to be one Earth radius thick, or about 4,000 miles (6,437 kilometers). Measurements of the thickness taken later showed that the band was also rapidly growing.

“So this really changes our understanding of solar wind-magnetosphere coupling,” said physicist Marit Oieroset of the University of California, Berkeley, also at the press conference.

Guess that wasn’t an abject enough apology for you?

You’d prefer something more like, “It is with agonized and troubled hearts that we must announce our sincerest, humblest apologies to the world and especially to our colleagues in the solar wind-magnetosphere coupling community. As part of the Global Science Conspiracy to Destroy People’s Religion, we’ve been lying to you for a long long time. It’s all been a hoax, and we can’t stand to cover it up any more. Solar wind-magnetosphere coupling works exactly the danged opposite from how we told you. We lied. Repeatedly and without blinking. Please forgive us, and we’ll promise never to mention that evo… whatever, any more.”

Would that be better?