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Topics: Science
Poppy Bilderbeck
A study has suggested that Earth's inner core is actually made up of a 'weird composition' of elements.
The Earth's core was once believed to be solid and made up largely of iron, however, new research conducted by scientists with the Institute of Geochemistry at the Chinese Academy of Sciences (IGCAS) has revealed it could contain certain 'lighter' elements.
Using data gathered from earthquakes and quantum mechanics theory, the control center of the planet's magnetic field has subsequently been found to instead be 'superionic'.
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Protecting us from solar radiation, the center of the Earth has been discovered as containing elements which make it both solid and liquid at the same time, Newsweek reports.
The center of the Earth is reported as being hotter than the sun's surface in how it's over 10,000 degrees in Fahrenheit, and containing huge pressures.
Creating simulations of atoms and particles within the Earth's core on a microscopic level using quantum mechanics theory, and simulating the temperatures and pressures found at the center, scientists found that some alloys transformed into a superionic state, proving that materials within the Earth's core are actually both solid and liquid in form.
Researcher He Ye commented on how 'abnormal' the findings were.
He stated: 'Our result shows that [in] the Earth's inner core some light elements, such as carbon, hydrogen, and oxygen, behave like liquids and diffuse freely in the lattice of solid iron. This suggests that the inner core is not a normal solid but a composition of solid iron sublattice and liquid-like light elements.'
The study resultantly found that the Earth's magnetic field is generated by liquid metal which is moved and combined with the inner core as a result of convection currents in the outer core caused by superheated solids.
Earthquake readings were similarly used to examine the Earth's core and the possibility of it containing elements in various different states in a paper published in December 2021 in Physics of the Earth and Planetary Interiors.
It uncovered there was even a material with a 'mushy' consistency in the center.
He Yu concluded: 'It is very interesting that both the inner core structure and geomagnetic field have shown observable changes in the past few decades.
'In this case, the core structure may change with the geomagnetic field. We have started related simulations. Hopefully, we can show our results in a short future.'
The study, called 'Superionic iron alloys and their seismic velocities in Earth's inner core' is published in Nature.
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