Earth's molten core reverses direction, puzzling scientists

Miles beneath the surface of everyday life, Earth's solid inner core has reversed its rotation — a shift detected not by instruments that could never survive such depths, but by the patient reading of seismic waves over decades. The discovery unsettles what geophysicists believed they understood about our planet's interior, and raises quiet but consequential questions about the magnetic field that shields all life from the sun's radiation. It is a reminder that the ground beneath us is not a settled thing, and that the Earth continues to hold secrets deeper than we have yet learned to ask abou