the.com/magnetometer
the unsung sense organ for fields your skin will never feel
means An instrument that measures the strength and often the direction of a magnetic field.
from A 19th-century scientific compound, stitched from "magnet" plus the Greek-derived suffix "-meter" ("measure"). "Magnet" itself reaches back through Latin "magnes" to the Greek "magnetis lithos" — the "Magnesian stone," named for Magnesia, a region of Thessaly where lodestone was found. So the name literally carries a place that quietly attracted iron long before anyone could measure why.
- in your pocket
- Your phone's compass is one
- sub-attotesla
- SQUIDs detect fields a billion times weaker than Earth's
- brain reader
- Maps neural activity without touching the skull
- sunken ships
- Finds shipwrecks by their steel scars on the field
- planet hunter
- Probes mapped magnetic fields across the solar system
proton precession magnetometer — used in archaeological surveys to detect buried artifacts and structures by measuring earth's magnetic field variations
fluxgate magnetometer — deployed on spacecraft like themis to measure interplanetary magnetic fields in earth's magnetosphere
squid magnetometer — superconducting device at mit and other labs that measures magnetic fields trillions of times weaker than earth's field