Earth's magnetic field

Earth's magnetic field (and the surface magnetic field) is approximately a magnetic dipole, with one pole near the geographic north pole and the other near the geographic south pole. An imaginary line joining the magnetic poles would be inclined by approximately 11.3° from the planet's axis of rotation. The cause of the field is probably explained by dynamo theory. The magnetic field extends several tens of thousands of kilometres into space as the magnetosphere.

References

• Discovering the Essential Universe by Neil F. Comins (2001)
• Introduction to Geomagnetically Trapped Radiation by Martin Walt (1994)