It forgot it left the oven on and changed direction to go turn it off.
Earth’s molten core suddenly reversed direction — and scientists don’t know why
Submitted 2 days ago by supersquirrel@sopuli.xyz@sopuli.xyz to earthscience@mander.xyz
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2026/08/260806050713.htm
Comments
Crackhappy@lemmy.world 2 days ago
supersquirrel@sopuli.xyz@sopuli.xyz 2 days ago
The ButterFry Effect
Zier@fedia.io 2 days ago This is the part of the movie where the core shuts off, the atmosphere disappears and everyone floats out into space.
ToiletFlushShowerScream@piefed.world 2 days ago
Neat, I get to tell my great great great great great great grandchildren how back in my day compasses pointed north! Before the great water wars of course… And to all you amateur geologists itching to explain it will take many more generations of grandchildren than that for it to happen, I say this - screw you, I don’t even have kids. <3
I_am_10_squirrels@beehaw.org 2 days ago
Haven’t we known for a while now that the magnetic field changes regularly? And if the magnet field is generated by the spinning of the core, it would make sense that something happened to the core rotation regularly.
supersquirrel@sopuli.xyz@sopuli.xyz 2 days ago
I don’t really know the specifics but yes, it does occasionally change, you can see evidence of this in minerals that formed in rocks that were sensitive to magnetic fields resulting in orientations that using geological context could be used to established the direction of the magnetic field.
This is about the specific granular flows of magma near the surface though, we aren’t talking about a global unified shift but rather a study that reveals that magma flows beneath the crust are much more localized, dynamic and unique to their idiosyncrasies within a human lifetime scale than the picture had suggested before.
LurkingLuddite@piefed.social 2 days ago
It (the core) DID NOT “reverse directions”. It was spinning slightly faster than the crust, now it’s spinning slightly slower.
This specific small section is flowing eastward instead of westward, which is faster, so the title directly contradicts both the old news about the core and this specific news they go on to half-describe in the article.
FFS, this kind of irresponsible “journalism” is half the reason people are so misinformed on things. Clickbait is garbage, especially about science.
supersquirrel@sopuli.xyz@sopuli.xyz 2 days ago
shrugs the nice thing about open access papers is I always link to them when available so you can just go read the introduction and conclusion/discussion of paper for yourself, or read the “popular science” article take on it, while I would say this headline is definitely clickbait grabby, there is fascinating science behind it so I find it hard to get upset at in this case.