A new study reveals that the Earth's inner core has stopped rotating and has reversed its direction
A new study by scientists from Peking University in China shows that the Earth's inner core recently stopped spinning and may now be spinning in the opposite direction.
A new study shows that the Earth's inner core recently stopped spinning and then reversed its direction of rotation.
In the study, scientists tracked data for change in seismic waves over several decades, from records from Alaska from the early 1960s to recordings collected in 2021.
Scientists have confirmed that changes in the movement of the Earth's core will not have a noticeable effect on us, as the inhabitants of the planet, and will not lead to a halt in its rotation.
During that study, scientists investigated the movements of the mysterious bowels of the earth by studying data on seismic waves that swept through the interior of the earth, and by looking at changes in these waves, they could get an idea of what is happening inside the inner layers of the earth, much deeper than you can reach. any tools.
The scientists tracked data for the change in seismic waves across many decades, from Alaskan records from the early 1960s to recordings collected in 2021.
The data showed that parts of the core suddenly showed very little change in 2009, which they say indicates that the rotation of the inner core has paused.
They also detected noticeable changes in waves starting around the early 1970s, but these changes are nothing new, as this pause was part of an oscillation that occurs every 7 decades or so, at which point the inner core gradually turns back in the opposite direction.
The results indicated that the inner core was slowly moving in a different direction between 1969 and 1971, rotating at least one-tenth of a degree per year, compared to the direction in which it was moving between 1971 and 1974.
"Our recent observations show that the inner core was a little slower from 1969-1971 and then moved in the other direction from 1971-74," John E. Vidal, study co-author and professor of Earth sciences, said in the 2022 release.
With regard to the impact of these changes in the Earth's core on us as humans, scientists say that the effect of changing the movement of the Earth's inner core will include a change in the dynamic interactions between the different layers of the Earth, which will appear in the occurrence of very small erosion during the length of the day on the surface of the planet, as it is expected that the days will be shortened. For a fraction of a second, humans won't notice it.
Scientists also pointed out that this will slightly affect the Earth's magnetic field, which protects its surface from harmful particles and radiation from the sun, but in any case this effect will not harm us as humans.
It is worth noting that stopping the rotation of the Earth's core will not lead to stopping the movement of the entire planet, because the inner core is a solid ball of iron floating in a liquid outer core, so its rotation is not necessarily related to the rotation of the rest of the planet.
Source: websites