Copy pasta from Popular mechanics. (They explain it better than i can)
“Researchers at the University of Maryland have constructed a 30-ton sphere that spins at more than 90 mph to generate magnetic fields. The 10-ft.-dia. sphere is filled with 13.5 tons of liquid sodium to mimic the Earth’s liquid-iron center core. A 3.3-ft.- dia. stainless-steel sphere inside the larger one counterrotates to approximate the motion of the planet’s solid iron inner core. The action of Earth’s inner liquid produces a magnetic field that makes compasses work, deflects harmful cosmic rays and protects the planet from solar wind. The field reverses every couple of hundred thousand years. By using a model instead of a computer simulation, scientists hope to determine how these reversals occur and predict the next one.”
Once their done with their research, they should try and send it into orbit.
Is this what they talk about on that oil commercial?
I wonder if it produces it own gravity too… thats hella cool
It’s so lifelike. Am I in space, looking at the actual world?
Seriously, though; pretty cool.
@Elepski:
I’m either going to sound like a dick or a moron:
Doesn’t everything generate its own gravity? Its an object of mass right?
@Elepski
According to the (many) theories of gravitational forces, this should produce it’s own gravity. However its gravitational field would, in theory, also be too small to significantly affect anything around it, especially being within another gravitational field as strong as the Earths…