Are Nuclear Reactions Continuing at the Center of the Earth?
Earth's innermost layer, called the inner core, is a solid sphere made of 80% iron and 20% other metals. Today's technology is not yet capable of physically examining this layer.
What causes the energy from the sun?
It is sunlight. The sun shines brightly and warms our world.
But how does this happen?
Through nuclear reactions!
Hydrogen atoms, which contain the majority of the sun's mass, are transformed into helium atoms by the pressure and heat at the center of the sun, and this nuclear transformation releases a magnificent energy.
The sun radiates this energy around it through convection.
Fusion reaction, all stars do this!
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Do you think the same nuclear reactions are happening at the center of the Earth?
Uh, I don't know.
Look, I never wondered about that.
The earth is not a star, and its mass is too small compared to the sun. Earth is a planet after all!
So under normal conditions, I honestly don't think there would be fusion reactions at the center of the earth.
As far as I know, there is no hydrogen in the center of the earth.
So I think it is not possible for there to be fusion reactions at the center of the earth as there are in the sun!
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Yes, there is an iron sphere at the center of our world.
Structurally, we can divide the earth into layers: crust, upper mantle, lower mantle, outer core and inner core.
Another description is air sphere, water sphere, stone sphere, fire sphere, outer core and inner core.
It is thought that the innermost layer of the Earth, called the inner core, is a solid sphere composed of 80% iron and the rest nickel and some nuclear metals.
I say thought, because even though today's technology is quite advanced, unfortunately, we still do not have the technology to physically examine this layer.
Of course, some tests are being carried out, such as X-rays, but the depths we are talking about are so great that the seismic waves reflecting from such depths are very weak, and the test results do not give the desired precision. Most of the seismic waves are absorbed by the other layers in between until they reach the level of the inner core.
Recent evidence suggests that the Earth's inner core may rotate slightly faster than the Earth rotates around itself. But this rotation difference is not very noticeable. The core rotates at a rate of 0.3 to 0.5 degrees per year, which is faster than the rotation of the crust. This was revealed by a geophysics team that conducted research in August 2005.
In this research, it was determined that the temperature of the inner core could not remain at this level since the formation of the Earth, so the temperature was higher than it should be due to nuclear reactions occurring in small amounts within the core.
I don't know the details of these reactions, that is, I don't know exactly which substance is transformed into which substance and how.
But as far as I understand, the pressure and temperature at the center of the Earth are sufficient for nuclear reactions.
This is said to cause the nucleus, which should be solid, to be in a plasma state.
In addition to iron, which makes up a large part of the inner core structure, there is also nickel, as we said, and it was a result of the researches that precious metals such as gold and platinum were also found in the inner core.
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In a nutshell
1. The fact that nuclear reactions are still going on at the center of the Earth, even though the exact structure is not yet fully understood,
2. The inner core rotates at a speed different from the earth's rotation by a certain amount, and
3. I found it interesting that the core contains precious metals such as gold and platinum.
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I have already read somewhere that the magnetic poles of the earth are in a rotational motion.
This means that compasses do not point to the same north today as they did in the old days when they were used for navigation.
The magnetic poles change direction over the years!
The reason for this was stated in the documents I read at the time as the wobble of the inner core relative to the earth's axis of rotation.
Apparently, they have now been able to measure the speed of this wobble.
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On the one hand, it's good that the Earth is cooling later than it should, thanks to nuclear reactions in the core.
It means that life will last long enough on Earth.
On the other hand, the fact that this is an additional negative contribution to global warming, which is already a big problem because of the increasing carbon dioxide content in the atmosphere, is also a negative aspect of this situation for our future.
Nevertheless, since the main cause of global warming is our own fault, namely the intense carbon dioxide emission, and since carbon dioxide emission can be controlled by us humans if we want, it does not mean that nuclear reactions in the center of the world have a huge negative impact on this issue.
We humans can prevent global warming if we want to!
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So let's stop here today.
There is so much more to be discovered on and in the Earth.
We humans have not yet reached the technology to drill down to the core and extract precious metals. Therefore, the valuable minerals available at those levels are of no use to anyone.
But there is a lot that can be done to utilize geothermal energy.
Let me end this article by saying that we should also focus on geothermal energy. How we can do this is a topic for another article.
Love and respect to everyone from Moscow
