A journey to the magnetic centre of the Earth – from space
- Zhang Keke heads a team planning to send four satellites into orbit to understand how the planet’s core creates a magnetic field and how the field changes
- The Macau-based planetary physicist has changed continents in the search for an answer
Zhang Keke knew a life-changing opportunity when he saw it.
The planetary physicist had spent decades investigating theories, modelling, and data analyses to try to understand the fundamentals of the planets in the solar system.
The answer to one big question had eluded him and now Chinese space officials were offering him a real shot at finding an answer.
“Would you be interested in doing a satellite project?” one of the officials asked him suddenly at a dinner in Macau in 2019.
Three years later, the project is a reality and the satellites are in final preparations go into orbit on their main mission: to understand how the Earth’s interior generates and maintains a global magnetic field, and how that field changes over time.
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The project is called Macau Science 1 and is based at the State Key Laboratory of Lunar and Planetary Science, or SKLplanets, at Macau University of Science and Technology.
