There's been a lot of news about the Earth's core slowing down lately, and while that sounds strikingly like the plot of 2003's disaster flick, The Core, we don't need to send Aaron Eckhart and Hilary Swank to fix it. There's no need to panic.
A schematic diagram showing how seismic waves generated by an earthquake pass through Earth's interior, revealing its structure. Credit: Wikimedia Commons.Exploring inside of our planet like we explore the solar system is a frontier that may never be reached. The intense pressure and temperature in the Earth makes it nearly impossible to even conceive of how we could explore much of our planet with our own eyes.
If we were to travel from the surface of the Earth to the very middle, we'd travel nearly 4,000 miles. Although that is the same distance as Boston to Helsinki, it is infinitely harder to traverse. In fact, if "straight down" is the direction you want to go, humans have only made it ~7.5 miles -- or a paltry 0.2% of the trek.
Probably the most important data we can collect about Earth's interior is how quickly seismic waves generated by earthquakes pass through the planet. Depending on the layers they intersect, the. That's because the composition and the state of the layer will alter those velocities. In general, cold and solid materials mean faster waves, warm and partially melted materials mean slower waves. This is a gross simplification, but it works in a broad sense.
, but really they are just helping us understand the dynamic nature of the mantle and the core of Earth.The first study to catch the media's attention was one that was sold as "Earth's core stopped spinning!" Now, that does sound dramatic ... except that it really isn't. That study, byThe Earth's metallic core is divided into two layers: the liquid
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