By creating conditions akin to the center of the Earth inside a laboratory chamber, researchers have improved the estimate of the age of our planet’s solid inner core, putting it at 1 billion to 1.3 billion years old.
By creating conditions akin to the center of the Earth inside a laboratory chamber, researchers have improved the estimate of the age of our planet’s solid inner core, putting it at 1 billion to 1.3 billion years old.
The results place the core at the younger end of an age spectrum that usually runs from about 1.3 billion to 4.5 billion years, but they also make it a good bit older than a recent estimate of only 565 million years.
What’s more, the experiments and accompanying theories help pin down the magnitude of how the core conducts heat, and the energy sources that power the planet’s geodynamo — the mechanism that sustains the Earth’s magnetic field, which keeps compasses pointing north and helps protect life from harmful cosmic rays.
Read more at University Of Texas At Austin
Image: A computer simulation of the Earth’s magnetic field, which is generated by heat transfer in the Earth’s core. CREDIT: NASA/ Gary A.Glatzmaier.
