Here’s what you’ll learn when you read this story: It used to be thought that there were more volatiles than expected in lunar soil because they escaped Earth before it had a stable magnetic field.

Forbes contributors publish independent expert analyses and insights. David Bressan is a geologist who covers curiosities about Earth. Nov 28, 2025, 07:59am EST Map of the strength of the Earth's ...

In 1999, Stephin Merritt's Magnetic Fields released their bone-classic triple album 69 Love Songs on Merge Records, the label founded and run by Superchunk's Mac McCaughan and Laura Ballance. Back ...

Here’s what you’ll learn when you read this story: The Earth’s magnetosphere protects life from deadly space radiation, but many aspects of its function remain a mystery. Scientists have long believed ...

A major dip in the Earth’s magnetic field over the South Atlantic has been puzzling scientists for over a century. An international team of researchers analyzed data collected by the European Space ...

The weak spot in Earth’s magnetic field, a region over the South Atlantic where the field’s strength is significantly reduced compared to its surrounding area, has grown by an area nearly the size of ...

Primordial magnetic fields, billions of times weaker than a fridge magnet, may have left lasting imprints on the Universe. Researchers ran over 250,000 simulations to show how these fields shaped the ...

The magnetic field swirling around an enormous black hole, located about 55 million light-years from Earth, has unexpectedly switched directions. This dramatic reversal challenges theories of black ...

New computer simulations suggest the first magnetic fields that emerged after the Big Bang were much weaker than expected — containing the equivalent magnetic energy of a human brain. When you ...

In physics, we have a bunch of constants that are used in models to explain how the world works. These are fixed numbers that we plug into equations along with our variables. For example, the ...

Magnetic fields play an important—if sometimes underappreciated—part in planetary systems. Without a strong magnetic field, planets can end up as a barren wasteland like Mars, or they could indirectly ...