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Scientists from Denmark and Britain were astonished when Europe鈥檚 fleet of Swarm satellites detected signs of a swiftly moving river of molten metal within Earth鈥檚 core, similar to the atmosphere鈥檚 jet stream, but buried thousands of miles below our feet.

This westward-flowing jet is important to the global magnetic field, researchers say, and learning more about the river of metal could help explain why the Earth鈥檚 magnetic field has changed throughout Earth history.

鈥淚t鈥檚 a remarkable discovery,鈥� said Phil Livermore of the University of Leeds in Britain, who led the team, according to . 鈥淲e鈥檝e known that the liquid core is moving around, but our observations haven鈥檛 been sufficient until now to see this significant jet.鈥�

Researchers attribute the discovery to the three European Space Agency Swarm satellites, launched in 2013, which gather information about Earth's magnetic field.

Those three satellites detected two areas of magnetic flux in the originating from the boundary between the core and mantle, a phenomenon that scientists determined must be due to the movement of molten metal. It is the flow of molten iron in the Earth鈥檚 outer core that gives our world a magnetic field, and scientists were able to track the molten jet through shifts in the magnetic field.

In the atmosphere, the jet stream is a rapid "river of air" that helps speed airplanes along to their destinations. In the Earth鈥檚 core, the 260 mile-wide metal jet moves about 30 miles per year, estimated the scientists. That may seem snail-like, but it's positively speedy for liquid iron. The New Scientist reports that the stream鈥檚 speed appears to have tripled since 2000.

鈥淭hat might not sound like a lot to you on Earth's surface, but you have to remember this a very dense liquid metal and it takes a huge amount of energy to move this thing around and that's probably the fastest motion we have anywhere within the solid Earth,鈥� the Technical University of Denmark鈥檚 Chris Finlay .

The jet is located approximately 1,800 miles beneath Alaska and Siberia, and currently spans about half of the planet, according to scientists. And it isn鈥檛 a new phenomenon, either. Study authors say that it is likely to have been in operation for hundreds of millions of years.

They say it is formed by swirling cylinders of molten iron in the outer core, which function as rollers to squish out more iron from the inner core as they push up against it.

Researchers say that this discovery is exciting, in part, because of what it says about the future of core research.

鈥淲e know more about the Sun than the Earth鈥檚 core,鈥� said Dr. Finlay. 鈥淭he discovery of this jet is an exciting step in learning more about our planet鈥檚 inner workings.鈥�