If you happen to venture into the weird part of the internet, you will find a million reasons why the Earth could end tomorrow itself. I won’t lie, it can be quite interesting to read all those theories that people have, but most of them, if not all, are thankfully, just theories.

The reversal of the Earth’s magnetic poles is one such event that doomsday sayers have been touting as a world-ending event. So, what is this reversal of magnetic poles in the first place?

After having read dozens of articles online, it’s clear to me that there is so much confusion regarding this. Yes, the magnetic poles are indeed going to flip sometime in the future, but it may not be as stark as people might make it seem.

What Actually Happens

As we all know, the Earth consists of an iron core surrounding which, is an ocean of hot, liquid metal and that gives it a magnetic field around the planet. We have a north pole and a south pole, geographically speaking but we also have a magnetic north pole and a magnetic south which are not too far away from the geographic north and south.

These magnetic poles are dynamic due to the that ocean of liquid metal at the centre of the Earth that keeps moving. And according to scientists, the magnetic poles can actually reverse. In fact, we know that over the last 20 million years, the magnetic poles have reversed every 200,000 to 300,000 years.

The process doesn’t happen in a single day and can take thousands of years to complete. So, if you expect to one day wake up and find that your compass is pointing North but towards Antarctica instead of the Arctic, that probably won’t happen!

The last reversal took place around 780,000 years ago, so we are long overdue for one. Scientists estimate that around 40,000 years ago, the poles did attempt to swap places but failed. So, a future reversal may be imminent.

Are We Doomed?

Now, the number one question in anyone’s mind would be whether or not we would survive such a reversal. The first thing to note here is that only the magnetic poles are going to reverse and not the geographical poles. So, the world is not going to flip upside down and wreak havoc on everything, in an apocalyptic event.

This is not to say that there won’t be any adverse effects altogether. During the shift, Earth’s magnetic field might weaken and that may leave the living organisms exposed to greater amounts of radiation from the sun which may lead to widespread cancer.

It would also impact the satellites orbiting our planet and the electric grids that could cause blackouts throughout the world. The reversal could also interfere in the migration of animals who rely on Earth’s magnetic field for navigation, like birds for example.

Life would definitely be affected in some major ways due to the reversal especially because it is a long process, but no apocalypse like event where everything is destroyed in a single day is likely to happen.