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Earth's Core Far Hotter Than Thought

Posted by timothy on from the might-as-well-be-walking-on-the-earth dept.

hessian writes "New measurements suggest the Earth's inner core is far hotter than prior experiments suggested, putting it at 6,000C — as hot as the Sun's surface. The solid iron core is actually crystalline, surrounded by liquid. But the temperature at which that crystal can form had been a subject of long-running debate. Experiments outlined in Science used X-rays to probe tiny samples of iron at extraordinary pressures to examine how the iron crystals form and melt."

4 of 189 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Oh noes! by i+kan+reed · · Score: 4, Insightful

    It's kinda like racist jokes:

    They can actually be really funny, but when you realize that the person telling the joke legitimately doesn't like black people, it creates a depressing side to the joke that ruins any humor.

  2. Re:Oh noes! by DougOtto · · Score: 5, Insightful

    So a "racist joke" has to automatically be about "black people?" Who's the racist now?

    --
    Solving Unix problems since 1989...
  3. Re:Oh noes! by shentino · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Historically blacks have in fact been the most notoriously discriminated against race, so it's a good example.

  4. Re:Oh noes! by sconeu · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I always thought that was radical feminists.

    "How many radical feminists does it take to change a lightbulb?"

    "THAT'S NOT FUNNY!"

    --
    General Relativity: Space-time tells matter where to go; Matter tells space-time what shape to be.