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Scientists discover massive solid metal ball inside Earth's core

Home> News

Published 15:04 26 Feb 2023 GMT

Scientists discover massive solid metal ball inside Earth's core

The discovery of the solid metal inner core comes after years of debate within the scientific community.

Katherine Sidnell

Katherine Sidnell

Scientists have discovered that there is a solid metal ball at the centre of the Earth.

The announcement comes after years of debate in the scientific community about whether a solid metal inner core of the Earth even exists.

Seismologists at the Australian National University now believe that this new core was created following a ‘significant global event from the past’.

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Scientists made the discovery after monitoring earthquakes.
Cigdem Simsek / Alamy Stock Photo

Thanh-Son Phạm and Hrvoje Tkalčić discovered the solid metal core by studying specific earthquakes and monitoring 'seismic waves reverberating through the entire planet'.

Amazingly, this led to them spotting details about the core which had previously gone unnoticed as they were able to study the core in a new way.

Not only were they able confirm the existence of a solid metal core, also known as an ‘innermost inner core’ or IMIC, they also made another surprising discovery.

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They now estimate that inner metal core is approximately 800 miles in diameter, making up nearly one per cent of the Earth’s volume, which is far bigger than other scientists had previously predicted.

After publishing their findings in Nature, Thanh-Son Phạm, later told The Washington Post: “Clearly, the innermost inner core has something different from the outer layer."

Despite still being made of same materials to the molten core, this solid metal inner core may also have different properties, explained the scientist.

“We think that the way the atoms are [packed] in these two regions are slightly different,” he said, adding this means seismic waves travel through it at a different rate.

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This new discovery could help us better understand how the Earth formed.
Image Source / Alamy Stock Photo

If that wasn’t enough, the researchers also believe that this solid metal core could be key to understanding how life evolved on planet earth.

They added that the metal inner core could be a ‘fossilised record’ of a significant tectonic event, with the core solidifying shortly afterwards.

Writing in The Conversation, the researchers said: “Studying Earth’s center is not just a topic of academic curiosity, but something that sheds light on the very evolution of life on our planet’s surface."

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Another group of scientists discovered the earth's core briefly stopped spinning.
Phil Crean A / Alamy Stock Photo

It’s not the only major scientific announcement made in the last few weeks.

Another team of seismologists have discovered that the earth’s core may have briefly stopped spinning and reversed direction.

They discovered this after noticing 'anomalies' between the core and the mantle, which dated back to the early 1970s.

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Scientists are now theorising that this change occurs every 70 years, in what they describe as a ‘tug of war’ within the Earth’s core.

Featured Image Credit: Drew Whitehouse, Son Phạm and Hrvoje Tkalčic / NASA

Topics: Science, News

Katherine Sidnell
Katherine Sidnell

Katherine is an entertainment journalist with a love of all things nerdy. Starting out writing Doctor Who fan fiction as a kid, she has gone on to interview the likes of Matt Damon, James May and Dua Lipa to name a few. Published in The Sun, The Daily Mail and Evening Standard - she now joins Ladbible as resident nerd in chief.

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@ksidnell

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