Sun in magnetic 'eyes' could lead whales astray

• Autores: Michael Le Page
• Localización: New scientist, ISSN 0262-4079, Nº. 3271, 2020, pág. 10
• Idioma: inglés
• Texto completo no disponible (Saber más ...)
• Resumen

  • Le Page discusses the study of nearly 200 standings of healthy gray whales over the past 30 years which has found that the animals are four times more likely to strand themselves during solar storms. Jesse Granger at Duke University in North Carolina and her colleagues think that radio frequency noise made by the storms interferes with the magnetic compass of whales, preventing them from sensing direction. But her team has only shown a correlation between the two events. To investigate, Granger and her team looked at 186 instances where individual gray whales with no signs of any injury or interaction with people had become stranded, presumably due to navigational errors. Strandings were twice as likely on days with more sunspots.