Forbes contributors publish independent expert analyses and insights. David Bressan is a geologist who covers curiosities about Earth. Without its magnetic field, life on Earth would not be possible ...

Earth’s magnetic field, the invisible barrier that deflects solar radiation and makes surface life possible, is not permanent in its current orientation. Geologic records show that magnetic north and ...

Earth’s magnetic shield is shifting in dramatic ways. New data from ESA’s Swarm satellites show that the South Atlantic Anomaly — a vast weak spot in Earth’s magnetic field — has grown by nearly half ...

For the first time, researchers measured the magnetic pull inside a single bacterium, turning a biological mystery into hard ...

Earth’s magnetic field is often described as a steady shield, but the geological record tells a more restless story. Polarity ...

Add Yahoo as a preferred source to see more of our stories on Google. A person with a neon yellow jacket stands in front of a huge wall of rock with cool striations. A 3.7-billion-year-old record of ...

The Earth's magnetic field and oxygen evolved together over 540 million years, according to a major NASA study.

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 ...

As with any such correlation, one has to entertain the notion that said correlation might be spurious or indirectly related before assuming a strong causal link. Here it is for example known already ...

Earth's magnetic field dramatically flipped roughly 41,000 years ago. Now you can actually 'hear' this epic upheaval, thanks to a clever interpretation of information collected by the European Space ...

Although the Earth’s magnetic field is reliable enough for navigation and is also essential for blocking harmful solar emissions and for improving radio communications, it’s not a uniform strength ...