Explorers have long trusted compasses to navigate Earth's land and oceans, using our planet's global magnetic field as their guide. But what happens when you take a compass beyond Earth - into ...

If all the compasses in the world started pointing south rather than north, many people might think something very strange, very unusual, and possibly very dangerous was going on. Doomsayers would ...

Back in 1832, the celebrated British physicist, Michael Faraday, carried out a set of experiments designed to answer a tantalizing question: could electricity be generated by Earth's rotation through ...

The planet's magnetic North Pole, where compasses point, has been unexpectedly moving toward Russia. While shifting is not a rare occurrence, the pole is moving both faster and differently than it ...

The needle will turn and then come to a complete stop. It will be facing magnetic north. You can check this by placing the compass next to the bowl. The needle is being affected by the Earth’s ...

Would a dramatic change in the Earth's magnetic field affect creatures that rely on it during migration? Late on a January night in 1993 I found myself on a beach on the Pacific coast of Costa ...

Until the arrival of GPS, the magnetic compass was the single most useful navigational tool available to humans. But it’s a recent invention. Although Chinese explorers understood the principles of ...

A magnetic field is invisible, but it can be detected using a magnetic compass. A compass contains a small bar magnet on a pivot so that it can rotate. The compass needle points in the direction ...

Magnetotactic bacteria synthesize magnetic iron nanominerals, which function as tiny compasses that allow the microbes to navigate using Earth's geomagnetic field. Earth's iron cycle is a very ...

Explorers have long trusted compasses to navigate Earth’s land and oceans, using our planet’s global magnetic field as their guide. But what happens when you take a compass beyond Earth — into orbit, ...