How does the compass tell us where the North pole is at the South Pole?

Imagine, you are preparing for the journey of life: go to Antarctica. Here you will see Antarctica and can play with penguin friends. But how do you find the true South Pole?

Perhaps, you will think that you need a compass first.Compasses - navigation tools containing magnetic pointers - have helped us humans navigate the Earth for thousands of years. The Earth's magnetic field always draws a magnetic pointer on the North Pole, so the compass always tells us where the north is located.

However, you may not know that the compass works incorrectly when near Antarctica . Why is that?

Go to Antarctica, you can play with the penguins.

The Earth has both geographic and magnetic poles. The geographical position of the north and south poles marks the opposite ends of the central axis from which the Earth will spin. However, the position of the magnetic poles of the North and South ends is not fixed and the distance from the corresponding geographic poles can change up to several thousand kilometers.

The Earth's magnetic field is created by the rotation of the planet and the abnormal movement of the mass of conductive liquid in the Earth's core, so the magnetic field and magnetic poles will change with speed. and the moving shape of the liquid

The compass needles are designed in alignment with the Earth's magnetic field. The northern tip of the needle will point at the magnetic North Pole, while the opposite needle will point at the magnetic South Pole. When the compass is removed and the needles are stable, this axis will be parallel to the magnetic field line of the Earth where you are standing.

But the Earth's magnetic field is not arranged in a straight line from Antarctica to the North Pole. As you approach the South Magnetic Pole, the magnetic field lines will bend and go straight to the South Magnetic Pole, perpendicular to the surface of the Earth."So the compass will often be inactive," said Tom Jordan, a geophysicist at the British Antarctic Survey. "Instead of trying to point horizontally, what the compass needle really tries to do is point straight down to Earth . "

That means, if you go to Antarctica and bring a compass with a free hand to move in three dimensions, the "male" tip of the compass will point straight down as soon as you arrive from the South Pole, Jordan confirmed. with Live Science.

At the North Magnetic Pole, the compass will be the same. The "north" needle will point straight to the ground, according to Jordan.

Jordan explained that, due to the strangeness of the compass near the North and South poles, polar explorers calculated the position of the north by mapping the angle of the sun or determining the position of the throne. stars . Today, everyone uses GPS to determine which direction is north in Antarctica. What they need to do is move around a bit to find the north, like when you don't trust the information that the map app on your phone tells us.

Jordan said traditional compasses would only provide the most accurate information, which direction is north and which direction is south when operating on the equator . That's because at the equator, all the magnetic planet's energy lines are horizontal and parallel to the Earth's surface.