Magnetic poles will likely remain in place for the foreseeable future.
How birds “see” magnetic fields
Seeing is believing.
Astrochemists can now study stars’ magnetic fields using alcohol
Ah, alcohol. The basis of any sound science.
The Ever-changing and Skepticized Van Allen Belts
Each of the two belts surrounds the Earth in a sort of doughnut-shaped formation.
NASA discovers Mars has a magnetic tail twisted by solar wind
Mars has an invisible magnetic tail and it might contribute to Martian atmospheric loss.
How northern lights and stranded whales might strangely be connected
The northern lights might be a brilliant spectacle for some, but they spelled doom for some unfortunate sperm whales.
Ancient potters carefully recorded the planet’s magnetic field — without even knowing it
Geologists, archaeologists, physicists, and ancient potters – working together to solve one of the Earth’s greatest mysteries. Who would have thought?
Baby Cardinal fish follow the magnetic field back home, scientists find
Fee-shee go home.
Earth may have had multiple magnetic poles one billion years ago
Earth’s magnetic past wasn’t as simple as today.
When Earth’s solid inner core formed: 1 to 1.5 billion years ago
Our planet’s magnetic field is the first and ultimate shield that guards life from the elements of space, particularly radiation. It’s enough to look at Mars, which also had a magnetic field but only for 500 million years, to see what could happen were it absent: what was once a “blue planet”, filled with vasts oceans of liquid water, maybe even vegetation and other life forms, is now a barred red rock. This invisible, protective shield likely existed shortly after the planet formed 4.5 billion years ago, when it was still a big blob of molten rock. It was only after the super hot iron liquid core lost enough heat to freeze (more properly said, it solidified) did the field become strong enough to allow life to foster. Previous studies estimated this happened sometime between 500 million and 2 billion years ago. A more refined analysis by University of Liverpool places the timeline between 1 billion and 1.5 billion years ago.
Watch: How Ants React to a Ringing iPhone
As soon as the phone starts ringing, these ants have a military-like reaction, forming a circle around the device. But why do they do this?
Scientists find how worms brains’ feel magnetism
It’s no secret that many animals can sense the Earth’s magnetic field, but until now, researchers didn’t know exactly how they could do this – what the sensor was. Now, a team from the University of Texas at Austin has found a simple, antenna-like structure in the brain of the simple worm C. Elegans that appears to be able to detect magnetic fields.
Mercury has magnetic field, astronomers report
The MESSENGER spacecraft spent four years orbiting Mercury, gathering valuable information and sending it back to Earth. But even in its final moments, as it crashed towards the surface of the planet, the spacecraft still did its job – it reported that Mercury has a magnetic field, likely millions of years old.
Star Trek-like shield discovered in Earth’s orbit shelters our planet from ‘killer electrons’
Many thousands of miles above our planet’s surface, electrons whiz through close to the speed of light. These electrons can streak past Earth in under five minutes, but can also become dangerous and have been known to destroy satellites and even injure astronauts in extreme cases. Most of the time, however, our gear and astronauts can rest safe since scientists have discovered
Magnetic Mirror reflects Light like No Other. Opens new suit of Optical Applications
In Lewis Caroll’s Through the Looking-Glass, and What Alice Found There (1871), the sequel to the classic Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, Alice again enters a fantastical world, this time by climbing through a mirror into the world that she can see beyond it. Though far from Alice’s spectacular feat, scientists at the Sandia National Laboratories in Albuquerque, New Mexico demonstrated a new
Dolphins can sense the Earth’s Magnetic Field
As if dolphins weren’t special enough, scientists have added another quality to the list: they can sense our planet’s magnetic field. A surprising variety of animals can sense the Earth’s magnetic field – bees, birds, salmon, frogs, sea turtles, salamanders, lobsters, and rodents; now, you can also add dolphins to that list. French researchers have shown that, just like some of
Earth’s magnetic field 10 times weaker than previous year. Is it about to flip?
Over the past six months, the Earth’s magnetic field – the bubble that protects our planet from incoming radiation and solar winds – has weakened by a factor of ten than what’s been registered in previous years. According to the European Space Agency (ESA), this discrepancy might indicate that the magnetic field is about to flip. An invisible shield Magnetic fields
Dogs can sense Earth’s magnetic field… while pooping
Every dog owner can attest that canines are remarkable navigators, like some sort of living, breathing compasses. For some time, researchers have suspected that they can sense Earth’s magnetic field and use it in turn for navigation. A recent study confirmed this as a fact, however the findings came after studying the dogs in one of their most intimate poses
The sun is expected to flip its magnetic poles in the coming weeks
As the sun approaches the end of its 11-year-long cycle, scientists expect during one flash to change its polarity, ‘flipping’ upside down. You might think this would come at a cataclysmic expense, but there is absolutely no need to get alarmed. This happened every 11 years for as far as we can tell and each time the event wasn’t particularly
Understanding a unique type of magnetism
Using low-frequency laser pulses, a team of researchers has carried out the first measurements on a mineral called herbertsmithite. This (pretty awesome looking) mineral features a unique kind of magnetism. Insite it, magnetic elements constantly fluctuate, leading to an exotic magnetic state, unlike conventional magnetism in which all magnetic forces allign in the same direction and also unlike antiferromagnets, where