We all know what a compass is, but ever since it was discovered we don’t know why the magnetic field keeps the needle of the compass to point north. Scientists came up with many ideas, but none of them were satisfying. Now, a geophysicist named Dan Lathrop has build his own planet that will create its own magnetic field.
At the University of Maryland he designed a massive stainless steel sphere which will be filled with molten metal and afterwards the planet will be spun at a top speed of 80 mph.
According to Lathrop it isn’t that hard to create a magnetic field because almost all planets in the solar system have one, although these are created by the naturally.
“Planets have an advantage because of their size and they’re much more rapidly rotating”, he said.
You might wonder why researchers don’t dig up to the core of the Earth. Well, because you just can’t and “the conditions of the core are more hostile than the surface of the sun. It’s as hot as the surface of the sun but under extremely high pressures. So there’s no way to probe it, no imaginable technique to directly probe the core”.
Lahtrop will not be too disheartened if his planet doesn’t create a magnetic field because “it will teach us something about when planets do and don’t make a magnetic field”. If it doesn’t work, the geophysicist said that he might build a bigger one as he is a patient man “”but not infinitely patient”. We can only hope that later this year when he tests it, the little planet will give us the information that we need.
