Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

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."

2 of 189 comments (clear)

  1. Re:I can just see the creationists by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Actually the idea of a "solid earth with hot core" is an old catholic church one. The enlightenment idea was that it was hollow.

  2. Re:Oh, Oh... by nedlohs · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Given the orders of magnitude and error bars involved and that the temperature at the core is all theory in the first place, ice-cold is far to precise.

    Just use absolute-zero cold.

    The temperature of the surface of the sun is smaller than the error bounds on our theories about the the temperature of the core. Thus if you are comparing them you might as well treat the surface temp as 0 and save a subtraction...