Solar storms : Disorientated whales killed

AFP - GETTY

Many types of whale often lose their  way and get stranded in shallow water

Young whales misled by changing magnetic fields that throw the mammal's inbuilt 'navigation system'

SOLAR storms could have killed almost 30 whales by affecting their ability to navigate, research claims.

The sperm whales got lost in the North Sea and died on beaches in the UK, Holland and Germany early last year.

Whales are thought to navigate using Earth’s magnetic field.

But it is possible solar storms like the kind responsible for the Northern Lights could disorientate them, researchers in Kiel, Germany, said.

In the open sea, scientists believe the animals switch to a more reliable navigation system if they realise they are heading the wrong way.

But young males make their way north towards the polar region, attracted by masses of squid, when they are aged between 10 and 15 years old.

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The Northern Lights were impressive this year but it could mean more stranded whales

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Dr Klaus Vanselow, from the University of Kiel, Germany, and his colleagues believe that the 29 deaths between December 2015 and January could have been triggered by solar storms recorded over the same period.

HOW COULD SOLAR STORMS HAVE AFFECTED THE WHALES?

Solar storms are eruptions of energy from the sun's surface.

Phenomena including flares and coronal mass ejections involve sudden releases of stored magnetic energy.

Sometimes these particles make it all the way to the Earth and beyond by flowing along the sun's magnetic field into space.

When the material collides with the Earth's magnetic field, it can dump particles into our upper atmosphere.

This triggers the stunning light shows we witness of Earth, which are caused by collisions between these electrically charged particles from the sun.

The lights are most commonly seen above the magnetic poles of the northern and southern hemispheres, but have been known to occur further away.

The same charged particles can also produce their own magnetic fields which can modify Earth's own magnetic field and affect compass readings - or in this case the whales' sense of direction.

The changing magnetic fields can also 'induce' electricity in long pipelines, or produce electrical surges in our power grids leading to brown outs and black outs.