Scientists at the Swiss federal technology institute ETH Zurich have reconstructed the history of the Earth's magnetic field. In collaboration with a Chinese team, they show in the journal Nature that the protective magnetic field already existed more than a billion years ago, much earlier than previously thought. +Get the most important news from Switzerland in your inbox Using complex computer simulations, the authors were able to demonstrate for the first time that an entirely liquid Earth core, as it existed before the crystallisation of the inner core, could also generate a stable magnetic field. The work was based on a model that reproduces the dynamics of the Earth's interior under realistic physical conditions. The calculations were carried out in part on the Piz Daint supercomputer in Lugano, southern Switzerland. + ETH Zurich remains best university in continental Europe "Until now, no one had been able to carry out such calculations under such correct physical ...
