On Earth, a compass can be a vital tool. Compasses have provided a constant point of reference for humans for over 800 years, enabling us to successfully navigate to the far reaches of the planet.
But our species has started to journey farther, into the cold abyss of space. Is the compass still useful outside the bounds of our planet: And if so, where would it point?
“A compass in space is going to measure different things [depending on] where exactly in space you are,” Jared Espley, a planetary scientist at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center in Maryland, told Live Science. A compass would still technically work in space, but it wouldn’t necessarily point you back to Earth. Instead, it would point to the north pole of whatever magnetic field is the strongest, relative to where in space the compass is located.
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