In mid-December of 2024, scientists officially updated the World Magnetic Model (WMM), which helps keep track of our planet’s magnetic north and its chaotic and relatively unpredictable movements.

Forbes contributors publish independent expert analyses and insights. An award-winning reporter writing about stargazing and the night sky. Using 11 years of magnetic field measurements from the ...

Pigeons may sense Earth's magnetic field using special cells in the inner ear. This discovery explains how they navigate long distances.

The updated version of the World Magnetic Model was released on Dec. 17, with a new prediction of how the magnetic north pole will shift over the next five years. Here's why it was changed. When you ...

It would be an understatement to say that the Earth's magnetic field is important. It's one of the reasons we're able to live on this rock tumbling through space, and it also gives us the gorgeous ...

Satellite data reveal that a weak region in Earth's magnetic field has grown by an area roughly half the size of continental Europe in the last 10 years. A weak region in Earth's magnetic field has ...

During a brief but dramatic chapter in Earth's history about 41,000 years ago, the planet’s magnetic field nearly collapsed. What followed was a cascade of environmental and biological changes that ...

Editor’s note: A version of this story appeared in CNN’s Wonder Theory science newsletter. To get it in your inbox, sign up for free here. Recent research suggested this dense center reversed its spin ...