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  • RESEARCH HIGHLIGHT

Telecoms satellites’ new purpose: spying on Earth’s magnetic field

Clues to the forces generated by the planet’s core emerge from observations intended for satellite navigation.
Illustration of Earth with white lines showing the magnetic field.

Earth’s magnetic field (depicted as white lines in this artist’s impression) can be studied with observations from a constellation of commercial satellites. Credit: Mikkel Juul Jensen/Science Photo Library

Satellites that were never meant to map Earth’s magnetic field turn out to be good at the job.

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Nature 595, 335 (2021)

doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-021-01860-9

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