Cek Fakta: Rotasi Bumi Berbalik, Matahari Diprediksi Bakal Terbit dari Barat?

Liputan6.com, Jakarta - Pada Minggu 4 Februari 2018, situs news.rakyatku.com mengunggah artikel berjudul Rotasi Bumi Berbalik, Matahari Diprediksi Bakal Terbit dari Barat.

Berikut isi artikel tersebut:

RAKYATKU.COM - Sejumlah ahli memprediksi jika kutub Bumi tak lama lagi akan berbalik arah. Hal ini diramalkan akan membuat rotasi Bumi ikut berbalik yang membuat Matahari tidak akan terbit dari timur, melainkan barat.

Dikutip dari Dailymail, Sabtu (3/2/2018), Direktur Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics di University of Colorado, Amerika Serikat, Daniel Baker, mengaku bahwa tanda-tanda pembalikan magnet Bumi mulai nampak.

"Andaikata pembalikan terjadi, kemungkinan akan membuat beberapa area di Bumi punya label 'tidak dapat dihuni.' Pembalikan ini juga mematikan jaringan listrik dan mengubah suhu Bumi," kata Baker dalam laporannya.

Laporan dari satelit milik Badan Antariksa Eropa, Swarm Trio yang memantau medan magnet bumi menunjukkan adanya kemungkinan kemiringan dari inti Bumi, tempat di mana medan magnet dihasilkan.

Penyebab jaringan listrik mati akibat badai Matahari yang parah. Seiring medan magnet Bumi yang terus melemah, ia menyoroti pentingnya sistem energi off-grid, yakni sistem pembangkit listrik yang hanya mengandalkan energi matahari sebagai satu-satunya sumber energi utama untuk melindungi Bumi.

"Badai ini menciptakan radiasi sangat tinggi dapat berefek buruk bagi satelit dan para astronaut yang bertugas di luar angkasa," kata Ilmuwan Magnetosfer NASA, Mona Kessel.

Henrik Svensmark, seorang ilmuwan cuaca dari Danish National Space Centre, percaya kalau Bumi mengalami periode alami dari awan rendah karena sinar kosmik yang masuk ke atmosfer lebih sedikit.

Alhasil, menurut dia, dampaknya bisa menghancurkan kehidupan umat manusia, karena mengubah iklim Bumi secara radikal dan menaikkan status penyakit berat seperti kanker.

Bumi memiliki inti cair yang sangat panas, dan menghasilkan medan magnet yang mampu melindungi bumi dari radiasi matahari.

Pelindung ini sifatnya tak kasat mata, dan memiliki meluas ribuan kilometer ke luar angkasa. Daya tariknya mempengaruhi segalanya hal, mulai dari komunikasi global hingga jaringan listrik.

Medan magnet ini begitu penting bagi kehidupan di Bumi. Namun kini mulai melemah hingga 15 persen selama 200 tahun terakhir.

Alanna Mitchell, dalam buku terbitan terbarunya yang berjudul 'The Spinning Magnet: The Electromagnetic Force that Created the Modern World and Could Destroy It,' menyebut, secara historis, kutub magnet Bumi Utara dan Selatan telah membalik setiap 200 ribu atau 300 ribu tahun.

Namun, pembalikan saat ini terlambat, karena yang terakhir sekitar 780 ribu tahun yang lalu. Jika medan magnet terus menurun, Bumi bisa berakhir seperti Planet Mars.

"Dunia yang dulunya subur, berubah menjadi planet kering yang tandus sehingga tidak mampu lagi mendukung kehidupan," tutur Mitchell.

Kendati demkikian, masih belum bisa dipastikan waktu Bumi akan berbalik arah rotasi. Para ilmuwan bahkan mengaku heran mengapa hal ini terjadi, dan fenomena ini digambarkan sebagai 'aktivitas gelisah.'

Meski artikel lama, unggahan tersebut kembali viral di Facebook. Sejak kali pertama diunggah, artikel itu telah dibagikan sebanyak 10.500 kali.

Benarkah pembalikan kutub Bumi bisa membuat Matahari terbit dari barat?

Cek Fakta Liputan6.com menggunakan sejumlah kata kunci dalam artikel yang diunggah situs news.rakyatku.com, yakni 'daily mail', 'Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics', 'Swarm Trio', dan 'Mona Kessel'.

Berikut hasilnya:

Peringkat teratas hasil penelusuran adalah artikel situs Daily Mail berjudul, Earth's magnetic poles could be about to FLIP: Experts warn the reversal could cause widespread blackouts and make parts of the world 'uninhabitable', yang dipublikasikan pada 31 Januari 2018.

Berikut isi artikel tersebut: 

The Earth has a fierce molten core that generates a magnetic field capable of defending our planet against devastating solar winds.

The protective field extends thousands of miles into space and its magnetism affects everything from auroras to power grids.

But this field, so important to life on Earth, has weakened by around 15 per cent over the last 200 years.

And this, scientists claim, could be a sign that the Earth’s poles are about to flip.

In a new report, Daniel Baker, director of the Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics at the University of Colorado, Boulder, claims there are signs of a reversal.

He says if this reversal happens, it is likely to render some areas of the planet 'uninhabitable' by knocking out power grids.

His comments were made in an in-depth Undark report written by Alanna Mitchell, who has a new book about the topic titled 'The Spinning Magnet: The Electromagnetic Force that Created the Modern World and Could Destroy It',

Mitchell writes: 'The dangers: devastating streams of particles from the sun, galactic cosmic rays, and enhanced ultraviolet B rays from a radiation-damaged ozone layer, to name just a few of the invisible forces that could harm or kill living creatures.'

Historically, Earth’s North and South magnetic poles have flipped every 200,000 or 300,000 years.

However a flip is currently overdue as the last one was about 780,000 year ago.

The latest satellite data, from the European Space Agency’s Swarm trio which monitors the Earth's magnetic field, suggests a flip may be imminent.

The satellites allow researchers to study changes building at the Earth’s core.

Their studies suggest molten iron and nickel are draining energy out of the core near where the magnetic field is generated.

While scientists aren't sure exactly why this happens, they describe the type of 'restless activity' that could suggest the magnetic field is preparing to flip.

If a switch happens, we would be exposed to solar winds capable of punching holes into the ozone layer.

The impact could be devastating for mankind, knocking out power grids, radically changing Earth’s climate and driving up rates of cancer.

‘This is serious business’, Richard Holme, Professor of Earth, Ocean and Ecological Sciences at Liverpool University told MailOnline in an earlier interview.

‘Imagine for a moment your electrical power supply was knocked out for a few months – very little works without electricity these days.’

The Earth's climate would change drastically. In fact, a Danish study believes global warming is directly related to the magnetic field rather than CO2 emissions.

The study claimed that the planet is experiencing a natural period of low cloud cover due to fewer cosmic rays entering the atmosphere.

Radiation at ground level would also increase, with some estimates suggesting overall exposure to cosmic radiation would double causing more deaths from cancer.

Researchers predict that in the event of a flip, every year a hundred thousand people would die from the increased levels of space radiation.

'Radiation could be 3-5 times greater than that from the man-made ozone holes. Furthermore, the ozone holes would be larger and longer-lived,' said Dr Colin Forsyth from the Mullard Space Science Laboratory at UCL.

The magnetosphere is a large area around the Earth produced by the planet’s magnetic field.

Its presence means that charged particles of the solar wind are unable to cross the magnetic field lines and are deflected around the Earth

Scientists have discovered that ancient pots can act as a magnetic time capsule.

This is because they contain an iron-based mineral called magnetite. When pots form, the magnetite minerals align with the Earth’s magnetic field, just like compass needles.

By examining pottery from prehistory to modern times, scientists have discovered just how dramatically the field has changed in the last few centuries.

They’ve found that Earth’s magnetic field is in a permanent state of flux.

Magnetic north drifts and every few hundred thousand years the polarity flips so a compass would point south instead of north.

If the magnetic field continues to decline, over billions of years, Earth could end up like Mars - a once oceanic world that has become a dry, barren planet incapable of supporting life.

But scientists claim the rate of decline is too fast for the Earth’s core to simply burn out.

Instead, the story told by ancient pottery suggests the Earth's poles could be about to undergo another flip.

According to the British Geological Survey, the Earth's magnetic field has on average four or five reversals in polarity every million years and we’re now overdue a similar event.

‘At the moment, we cannot accurately determine whether or not the Earth’s field is about to flip,’ said Dr Forsyth. ‘We have only been recording the Earth’s field for around 170 years; about 1-15 per cent of the time a flip is expected to take.’

If a flip occurs, it would cause the Earth’s magnetic shield to be weakened for thousands of years, opening up our defences and causing cosmic radiation to get through.

'We have a double layer defence shield,' said Jim Wild a space scientists at Lancaster University.

'Space is full ofstuff that’s not great for biological tissue. If we didn’t have an atmosphere,that stuff would be hitting us. It’s the magnetic field protects atmospherefrom the solar wind.'

Artikel tersebut membahas mengenai efek pembalikan kutub Bumi, bukan pembalikan arah terbitnya Matahari.

Liputan6.com meminta penjelasan Kepala Lembaga Penerbangan dan Antariksa Nasional (Lapan), Thomas Djamaluddin terkait klaim tersebut.

"Itu berita lama yang keliru. Kutub bumi dan rotasi bumi tidak akan berbalik. Namun kutub magnetik bumi yang mungkin berubah," kata Thomas Djamaluddin.

Ia kemudian memberikan tautan ke link artikel berjudul Pembalikan Kutub Magnet Bumi Bukan Tanda Kiamat yang dimuat Radar Cirebon. Ada penjelasan Thomas Djamaluddin di dalamnya.

Seperti dikutip dari Radar Cirebon, Kepala Lapan menjelaskan, perubahan kutub medan magnet bumi tidak berpengaruh kepada posisi sumbu poros Bumi.

"Posisi kutub utara dan selatan bumi tidak berubah dengan adanya perubahan kutub magnetik. Itu bukan tanda kiamat. Ribuan tahun lalu pernah terjadi," kata dia.

Benarkah pembalikan kutub Bumi bisa membuat Matahari terbit dari barat? Jawabannya tidak. 

Sama sekali tak ada penjelasan soal itu dalam artikel asli yang diterbitkan Daily Mail. Kepala Lapan, Thomas Djamaluddin juga menyebut, itu adalah kabar yang keliru.

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