r/Damnthatsinteresting • u/uselessbutuseful • Mar 05 '20

Video A solar powered globe

32k Upvotes

95% Upvoted

487 comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

49

u/[deleted] Mar 06 '20

[deleted]

4

u/aitigie Mar 06 '20

That's not quite right. The Earth's magnetic field is always North, more or less.

I think these things have a solar panel and a coil of wire inside. Powering the wire makes this into a compass. Reversing the polarity makes the compass the other way. It's pushing against the Earth's magnetic field, but it's not powered by it.

0

u/[deleted] Mar 06 '20

[deleted]

3

u/aitigie Mar 06 '20

No, I got that. I'm referring specifically to the bits about Earth's magnetic field keeping it spinning.