Simulations of more than 3,000 iron atoms have radically expanded our understanding of the planet’s magnetic field
The Earth’s core is the planetary equivalent of the Tokyo subway at rush hour: it doesn’t fit into a pin. The iron atoms that make it up are under so high pressure and bound together so tightly that you’d think they had no room for anything. but not.
Even in those circumstances they have room to maneuver. In fact, they are moving Much more than we could have imagined.
The bustling inner life of the Earth’s core. A team of researchers from the University of Texas at Austin and several Chinese universities made Several experiments (and theoretical studies) to understand what we can call life inside the Earth. The results are very strange.
As published in PNASNot only can atoms move, and they move quickly (in milliseconds), but they maintain the underlying metallic structure; That of iron.
Huge collection of chairs. The easiest way to understand this is through the image used by the researchers themselves: it is as if in the middle of a wedding banquet, the guests quickly got up and sat down elsewhere. Dining at each table will be different, but the chair structure will be the same.
Very curious…but what does that mean? This discovery (which, we must remember, has many limitations) could explain some of the most interesting features of the Earth’s core. This is the key to many things, such as understanding why seismic measurements tell us that the core is a much “softer and more flexible” environment than expected; But above all, understand the magnetic field that protects us.
After all, we know that other planets in our solar system had strong magnetic fields that were destroyed over the course of their planetary history. Understanding what’s happening in our magnetic field, and by the way, knowing what we could do if we wanted to make it, are crucial for the future of the species (on a planetary scale).
What are the restrictions? The simplest is that it is impossible to take pulp samples. Therefore, the researchers studied the iron plate in great detail under laboratory conditions and afterwards They put that data into complex models Which takes into account the pressure and temperature of the Earth’s interior. In this case, they were able to generate a model of 30,000 atoms with which they could test their hypotheses and theories.
That is, it is a Very innovative methodology (The data you provide seems to fit the observations we have), but it is still a hypothesis in progress.
In Chataka | It turns out that the Earth’s core is moving
Image | a pot
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