The Earth’s magnetic poles are in perpetual motion—an ongoing dance driven by the planet’s dynamic core. Unlike geographic poles, magnetic poles drift unpredictably due to changes in the Earth’s core magnetic field, a result of the geodynamo: the churning of liquid iron in the outer core that transforms mechanical energy into magnetic energy. This process generates a planetary-scale magnetic field, at the largest scale resembling a dipole (north and south poles). While often aligned with the planet’s spin axis, they don’t have to be—Uranus, for example, has a magnetic field tilted 60 degrees from its rotation axis.
The core field is constantly evolving, from major pole reversals every hundreds of thousands of years to sudden “geomagnetic jerks” that happen within decades to years. The result? Magnetic poles wander, currently shifting at about 40 km/year, with the north pole racing from Canada toward Siberia.
Understanding and tracking this motion is vital for navigation, space radiation shielding, and more. Models like the International Geomagnetic Reference Field (IGRF) and World Magnetic Model (WMM)—on average updated every five years, most recently in late 2024—integrate satellite data and ground surveys to predict magnetic changes.
This wandering pole has practical impacts. For instance, airport runway numbers—aligned with magnetic bearings—require periodic repainting. But for novel navigation systems like AQNav, developed by SandboxAQ, the story is different. AQNav uses cutting-edge AI and quantum sensors to bypass the volatile core field, isolating the stable crustal magnetic field stored in Earth’s rocks. These fields, though weaker, provide reliable signals for GPS-free navigation, ensuring robust performance even as the magnetic poles continue their restless journey. Because the crustal fields change slowly, think geological time scales, that makes them a great guide for navigators.
AQNav is pioneering the future of navigation and proving that even in a world of wandering magnetic poles, we can always find our way.
