How the core of the Earth was formed: the structure of our planet

What does our planet have with you inside? How did the core of the Earth form , in what time immemorial did this occur? All these questions have long worried humanity. And many scientists wanted to know as soon as possible what was there, in the depths? But it turned out that learning all this is not so easy. Even today, having all the modern devices for conducting all sorts of research, mankind is able to drill wells into the depths of only a few fifteen kilometers-no more. And for full and comprehensive experiments, the required depth should be an order of magnitude greater. Therefore, scientists also have to calculate how the core of the Earth was formed, using a variety of high-precision instruments.

The Study of the Earth

Since ancient times people have been studying rocks that are naturally exposed. Cliffs and slopes of mountains, steep banks of rivers and seas ... Here you can first observe the indigenous rocks that existed, perhaps, millions of years ago. Wells are drilled in some suitable locations. One of the deepest such - on the Kola Peninsula. Its depth is fifteen thousand meters. The mines that people break through for the mining of minerals also help to study the internal structure of the Earth. Of course, they can not "get" the nucleus. But from these mines and wells, scientists can extract rock samples, recognizing in this way about their change and origin, structure and compositions. The minus of these methods is that they are able to investigate only the land and only the upper part of the Earth's crust.

Recreating conditions in the core of the Earth

But geophysics and seismology - the science of earthquakes and geological composition of the planet - help to penetrate non-contactally deeper and deeper. By studying seismic waves and their propagation, it becomes clear what the mantle and the core consist of (which is similarly determined, for example, with the composition of fallen meteorites). Similar knowledge is based on the obtained data - indirect - on the physical properties of substances. Also today, modern data, obtained from artificial satellites in orbit, contribute to the study.

The structure of the planet

Scientists managed to understand, summarizing the obtained data, that the Earth's structure is complex. It consists of at least three unequal parts. In the center is a small core, which is surrounded by a huge mantle. The mantle occupies about five-sixths of the total volume of the globe. And from above everything is covered by a rather thin outer crust of the Earth.

The structure of the nucleus

The core is the central, middle part. It is divided into several layers: internal and external. According to most modern scientists, the inner core is solid, and the outer one - liquid (remains in a molten state). And the kernel is very heavy: it weighs more than a third of the mass of the entire planet with a volume of just over 15. The core temperature is quite high, it is from 2000 to 6000 degrees Celsius. According to the assumptions of science, the center of the Earth consists of iron and nickel in the main. The radius of this heavy segment is 3470 kilometers. And its surface area is about 150 million square kilometers, which is approximately equal to the area of all continents on the surface of the Earth.

How the core of the Earth was formed

Information about the core of our planet is very small, and it can be obtained only indirectly (there are no samples of the core rocks). Therefore, theories can only be expressed hypothetically about how the core of the Earth was formed. The history of the Earth is billions of years old. Most scientists adhere to the theory that in the beginning the planet was formed as fairly homogeneous. The process of nucleus separation began later. And its composition is nickel and iron. How did the core of the Earth form? The melt of these metals gradually descended to the center of the planet, forming a nucleus. This was due to a greater specific gravity of the melt.

Alternative theories

There are also opponents of this theory, leading their own, quite reasonable reasoning. First, these scientists call into question the fact of passing an alloy of iron and nickel to the center of the nucleus (which is more than 100 kilometers). Secondly, if we assume the separation of nickel and iron from silicates like meteorite, then a corresponding reduction reaction should occur. It, in turn, was to be accompanied by the release of a huge amount of oxygen, forming an atmospheric pressure of several hundred thousand atmospheres. And there is no such evidence of the existence in the past of the Earth of such an atmosphere. Therefore, theories were put forward about the initial formation of the nucleus during the formation of the entire planet.

In 2015, Oxford scientists and did suggest a theory that the core of the planet Earth is made up of uranium and has radioactivity. This indirectly proves the so long existence of the magnetic field of the Earth, and the fact that in our times our planet radiates much more heat than was assumed by previous scientific hypotheses.