Explain the difference between true north and magnetic north?

Question

I'm a 6th grade student, can you tell me the answer very eaasily?

Answer 1

Earth is a giant magnet because of all the charged particles moving inside it. Therefore it has a north and a south magnetic pole. As it happens, coincidental or not, these poles are close to the poles of the Earth's rotational poles. These are the points which do not move because of the Earth's rotation around itself. However these poles and the magnetic poles are just at different places. So for practical navigational purposes in old times people just assumed they were close enough and used magnets to create compasses. Also there are geographical evidence that the Earth's magnetic poles moved and reversed themselves many many times during the lifetime of the Earth.

Answer 2

Imagine that you are spinning a basketball between your fingers touching the ball where the lines come together on both ends. (This would be like the lines of longitude coming together at the north pole and at the south pole.) That point where the ball is spinning is like the true north that the earth is spinning around.

Now glue a big magnet about 3 inches away from the "north pole" on your basketball. Every compass in the area would point toward that large magnet -- not toward the true north. That's the way it is in the earth. There is a large magnetic field that is located in northeastern Canada that all the compasses point toward and that is the magnetic north.

If you are in the Eastern U.S. where you compass points toward the magnetic north, it also points toward the true north so they appear to be in the same place. However, as you move west, the difference becomes more apparent so that the compasses actually point a little bit southeast of the true north.

Answer 3

Not an easy answer. I will try to simplify. The closer you are to the North pole the farther the difference between true and magnetic. The farther away from the North pole the closer the difference so in some palces ther is not enough of a difference to mention. Because the earth wobbles it does not spin that is why there is a difference.

Answer 4

Many decent responses. You can find a magnetic declination (difference between True North and Mag. North) map online which will indicate how much the declination is at various locations on earth. Then you can adjust your compass to the correct value and always point to true north.

Also, these values change over time.

Answer 5

Hi there;
True North = points to Polaris and is not stationary because of the movement of Earth. Meaning; the Earth wobbles on its axis.
Magnetic North = is determined by a magnetic compass and is based on Earth itself.
So one is found by the location of a star (true north) and the other is based on the magnetic field of the Earth (magnetic north). Hope this helps :)

Answer 6

Simple true North points to Polaris and the magnetic north is one point where gravity is strongest since it is closer to the Earth's core.

Answer 7

sixth grade student my a**, more like aviation college student.