A study by Chinese scientists suggests that the rotational speed of the Earth’s core has changed, even reversed.
While the Earth’s inner core appears to have started spinning faster in the 70s, its rotation slowed down and became synchronous with Earth around 2009.
Earth’s rotating and super-hot iron core may now rotate more slowly than our planet’s surface, a new study suggests.
This study even suggested that the rotation of the Earth’s core may have paused and possibly reversed.
The authors of the new study are Yi Yang and Xiaodong Song from China’s Peking University. They hypothesized that “the rotation of the inner core has recently halted,” even though the inner core previously began rotating faster than the rest of the Earth in the 70s.
“We believe the inner core rotates, relative to the Earth’s surface, back and forth, like a swing.” “The cycle of this swing is regarding seven decades,” the researchers said.
The study authors came to these conclusions following studying seismic waves from repeated earthquakes that have occurred over the past six decades. These waves pass through the planet’s core and can help track its motion.
The researchers further suggest that the inner core’s rotation synchronized with our planet’s rotation around 2009 and that the next change in this rotation is expected to occur in the 2040s.
Australian National University geophysicist Hrvoje Tkalcic was not involved in the study. He said the rate of rotation of the earth’s core and whether it will change is still up for debate.
“The inner core doesn’t stop completely,” he said, adding that the study’s findings “means the inner core is now more in sync with the rest of the planet than it was a decade ago when it was spinning rapidly.” slightly”.
“Nothing catastrophic is happening,” he added.
Earth is made up of crust, mantle, inner core and outer core. The solid inner core is located regarding more than 5,000 km from the Earth’s crust. The solid core is separated from the mantle by a liquid outer core, allowing it to rotate at a different speed than the Earth itself.
With a radius of nearly 3,500km, the Earth’s core is regarding the size of Mars. It is composed mainly of iron and nickel, and makes up regarding a third of the Earth’s mass.
