Occasionally below at Hackaday we deliver you stories from a bit outside our environment of tech, due to the fact they have an interesting angle. It’s possible they relate to science or astronomy, or in the case of the UK’s Ordnance Survey explaining how Britain’s a few Norths will align, geography.

Some of you might know that the British monarch has two birthdays, but 3 Norths, what on earth is heading on? You’ll guess that two of them are real North, pointing to the North Pole, and magnetic North, pointing to the Earth’s north magnetic subject, but how about the 3rd? It’s grid North — the north of the country’s mapping grid technique in which the curved surface is projected onto a flat sheet.

It aligns with true North at 2 degrees West of Greenwich, and the news is that for the first time ever owing to motion of the magnetic North Pole, the 3 different Norths will align at a level in the south of England. Magnetic North has been on the move at some pace above the very last couple of many years, from a position somewhere in the Canadian Arctic islands northwards, and it so transpires that for Brits its course is briefly aligned with our view of the Pole. The Ordnance Study tale is of some curiosity, but for a wealth of information it’s well worth consulting NASA. Take a seem at the video clip below the crack.

Header picture: ArnoldReinhold, CC BY-SA 4.