How does a magnetic compass work? Well, it’s all down to basic physics and human ingenuity. The key component of a standard baseplate compass is its magnetized needle, which is allowed to spin freely ...

Earth is surrounded by a magnetic field generated by electric currents from within the planet. Compasses take advantage of this field to identify north and serve as a navigational aid. But one social ...

Some inventions are so simple that it’s hard to improve them. The magnetic compass is a great example — a magnetized needle, a bit of cork, and a bowl of water are all you need to start navigating the ...

The magnetized needle of a conventional compass wants to align with Earth’s magnetic field—helpful, unless you’re near the ...

A magnetometer is a device that measures magnetism: the direction, strength, or relative change of a magnetic field at a ...

Every year, great white sharks travel over 12,000 miles from South Africa to Australia, charting a nearly perfect straight line across the ocean. And every year, they turn around and travel back.

In the blink of an eye in geological time, Canada has lost one north pole but gained another, a new and different claim to be ...

Fish, birds, reptiles, amphibians, and even a few mammals rely on magnetoreception for navigation. But the exact mechanism ...

Measurements by the SWAN instrument onboard SOHO, have shown that the heliosphere, the solar wind filled volume which prevents the solar system from getting embedded in the local (ambient) ...

A ship’s steel hull becomes part of Earth’s magnetic field, which can quietly skew a magnetic compass in different directions as the vessel turns and heels. This explains how binnacle correctors work, ...

Our planet's invisible shield is changing in ways that scientists are only beginning to understand. Over the past two hundred years, Earth's magnetic field has weakened by around nine percent on a ...

We may finally know the secret to how migrating birds can sense Earth’s magnetic fields: a molecule in their eyes called cryptochrome 4 that is sensitive to magnetism, potentially giving the animals ...