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the hand of God
The Sistine Chapel
ScienceAlert
After a 20-Year Search, Scientists Have Finally Found Earth's True Innermost Core
Story by Michelle Starr • 5h ago
Our home planet is seeming more like a jawbreaker the more we learn about its interior.
A new analysis of Earth's innards suggests the presence of an inner core within the inner core – a dense ball of iron at the very center of our planet.
This could reveal some previously unknown details about the history of Earth's formation and evolution, suggesting a significant global event early in our planet's history.
Earth's interior structure consists of a series of concentric layers, from the crust to the core. At the very center, with a radius of about 1,227 kilometers (762 miles) is the inner core – the densest part of our planet, a solid ball mostly composed of iron and nickel, comprising less than 1 percent of Earth's volume.
This inner core is like a time capsule of Earth's history.
As the inner core grows, the solidification process releases heat and light that drives convection in the outer liquid core – the engine that powers the dynamo that converts kinetic energy into magnetic energy and maintains Earth's global magnetic field. That magnetic field is thought to keep harmful radiation out, and the atmosphere in, allowing life to thrive.
Changes in the inner core could thus trigger changes in the dynamo, which in turn could have implications for Earth's habitability over time.
But studying the inner core isn't easy. We can't just pop down there and drill into it; instead, we have to rely on seismic waves that bounce around inside the planet, changing as they encounter volumes of varying density.
jusplay4fun wrote:I will say that I have known for a long time (likely 40+ years when I took a Geology course) that the earth had an inner core of iron. I think this article gives detail on this "inner inner" core.
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