FACT: the magnetic north pole is moving towards Russia

Will Santa Claus change his name to Sergei Klaus? It seems inevitable as the magnetic north pole is moving steadily and very quickly north. Currently it’s located inside Canada, but within a couple decades it may be firmly in Russian territory. A government conspiracy? Nope… just science.

The magnetic field is created and influenced by the vast ocean of liquid iron inside our planet. It’s really hot. Like surface of the sun hot. So the iron swirls and moves, and due to the spinning of the earth even creates whirlpools of sorts. It’s this constant movement that leads to the shifting magnetic pole.

Throughout the 20th century, the magnetic north pole has been moving northwards at about 10 kilometers per year. More recently, however, it’s been trucking along in the same direction nearing 40 km per year.

Bonus fact: Every now and again the earth reverses polarity and the magnetic field flips around. The record of the rocks shows this happening, on average, every 300,000 years but it’s totally random. It’s been 780,000 years since the last one. When it does happen, it’s not a sudden change, but a complex transition that may take thousands of years to complete. During that time, there would be multiple magnetic poles all over the earth, and compasses would be pretty junky.

• Source: http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/Y2003/29dec_magneticfield.htm

Related Facts

• The Shape of the Universe (part 2): Infinity and Beyond
• The sea with no shores
• SING-ALONG: a folk-science song that explains how water boils