Earth's Core Far Hotter Than Thought 189
hessian writes "New measurements suggest the Earth's inner core is far hotter than prior experiments suggested, putting it at 6,000C — as hot as the Sun's surface. The solid iron core is actually crystalline, surrounded by liquid. But the temperature at which that crystal can form had been a subject of long-running debate. Experiments outlined in Science used X-rays to probe tiny samples of iron at extraordinary pressures to examine how the iron crystals form and melt."
Oh noes! (Score:5, Funny)
Global warming has reached the core!
Re:Oh noes! (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Oh noes! (Score:5, Funny)
He was talking in Fahrenheit degrees. I believe 6000 C is approximately equal to 2,000,000 F. At least if I remember what I learned from the American education system :)
Re:Oh noes! (Score:5, Informative)
Oh man, don't say that. Someone will believe it.
Re:Oh noes! (Score:4, Funny)
Close enough.
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Whooosh
Re:Oh noes! (Score:4, Funny)
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Damn! Downmodded for poking fun at Algore. No one has a sense of humor anymore.
Re:Oh noes! (Score:5, Funny)
That core is so hot right now.
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Looks like...
we need to journey to the center of the earth to save the planet!
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Come on, it is still funny. Just because you don't like his politics doesn't mean you can't laugh.
Re:Oh noes! (Score:4, Insightful)
It's kinda like racist jokes:
They can actually be really funny, but when you realize that the person telling the joke legitimately doesn't like black people, it creates a depressing side to the joke that ruins any humor.
Re:Oh noes! (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Oh noes! (Score:5, Insightful)
Historically blacks have in fact been the most notoriously discriminated against race, so it's a good example.
Re:Oh noes! (Score:4, Insightful)
Let's be fair, my phrasing was ambiguous. There is a viable reading of what I posted that makes it look like I was implying what he said I was. I wasn't, but it is my fault for being insufficiently clear that I meant it as an example, not a universal assertion.
Re:Oh noes! (Score:5, Funny)
Could you clarify? I certainly wouldn't wand some random stranger on the internet thinking poorly of me.
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Historically every race that was different from the speakers race was notoriously discriminated against. Or does history only go back a century or two for you?
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Not really true, if you go back far enough. At least, not in the way modern discrimination and racism works. Otherwise you're going to be hard pressed to explain how Macrinus (a Berber and not even a senator) came to power in Rome in 217. Or why Christian slaves in 1200 could easily be freed when they converted - which would not have been possible if they were enslaved because of their skin.
The whole concept of "race" is a modern construct, easily traced back to the times when slaves were used on plantation
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In what context?
Consider the Americas and the native population vs the Spanish, English, and others.
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Historically blacks have in fact been the most notoriously discriminated against race, so it's a good example.
Tell that to the Irish.
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Hmmm....that is kind of a guilty feeling. You want to laugh because the joke is funny but then it isn't because of the meanness behind it.
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I'm not sure I buy that pop-psych explanation, but that doesn't mean it's wrong.
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Comparing Global Warming to Racism is already dumb. Equating the two is going Full Retard mode.
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Oh Blonds laugh at Blond jokes... they just don't get them.
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They get the jokes if you stop and explain the jokes to them.
Re:Oh noes! (Score:5, Funny)
Q: "How many tree-huggers does it take to change a lightbulb?"
A: "That's not funny!"
Re:Oh noes! (Score:5, Insightful)
I always thought that was radical feminists.
"How many radical feminists does it take to change a lightbulb?"
"THAT'S NOT FUNNY!"
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How many men does it take to turn on a radically feminist lightbulb?
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Yes. It appears that tree-huggers are the new radical feminists.
Racist! (Score:2)
How many psychiatrists does it take to change a light bulb?
One.
But the light bulb has to want to change.
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No, the core is not hot enough to sustain fusion. 6000 degrees is not enough for fusion. Not in the earth's core, not on the surface of the sun either. The sun doesn't do fusion on the surface. It does fusion deep inside, where the temperature is millions of degrees. The earth and the sun have one thing in common - both are much hotter inside than on the surface. . .
Trip Planning (Score:4, Funny)
I can just see the creationists (Score:3, Funny)
Iron vs. sulfur (Score:3)
Re:Iron vs. sulfur (Score:5, Informative)
Since when did Creationists ever let facts get in the way of a good myth?
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Oh, it's just ironic, isn't it.
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An iron crystal at that pressure would be incredibly pure.
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Ah, I see I'm wrong on that one - the "single iron crystal" idea was disproven 5 years ago or so. It's nickel-iron and heavier elements.
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It was a big idea for several years up until 2007 or so - at that pressure, an iron crystal will reject impurities. I guess the fact that nickel-iron alloy is heavier than elemental nickel or iron meant there was never a chance for that crystal to form.
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Well, then, we need to send someone down to the Earth's core at once to find out for certain. Might I be the first to recommend that we start with all of Congress, followed by all the lawyers?
Brimstone vs. sulphur (Score:3)
Sulphur (however spelled, correctly or Americanly) hasn't been called "brimstone" since we have a scientifically useful concept of "element".
True, but people familiar with the Bible only through pop-cultural osmosis [tvtropes.org] might have heard of the expression "fire and brimstone" [tvtropes.org] but not have actually read modern translations of Revelation that refer to "sulfur"/"sulphur".
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Actually the idea of a "solid earth with hot core" is an old catholic church one. The enlightenment idea was that it was hollow.
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we always knew hell was down there
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Actually, very few thought the world was flat even before Christianity.
Anyone who has sailed, knew it wasn't.
The issue was, we all thought Columbus was crazy because everyone thought the earth was bigger and he would die at sea (and you know what, we were right....neener neener -just happened there was a whole 'nother continental mass in between).
Who'd da thunk that?
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1. Circles are flat. (sure the Hebrew word also applies to spheres, but it still applies to 2 dimensional circles and hence isn't useful in your claim).
2. Congrats on finding some stupid scientists 400 years ago, who somehow hadn't heard Pythagoras and also somehow missed that the world had been circumnavigated in 1522.
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You threaten to kill me for being a heretic for saying otherwise, and I will happily tell you the earth is flat today.
Far hotter? (Score:5, Informative)
I may have misread, but I think this article is saying that 20% hotter is "far" hotter. Not the adjective I would use for 20%.
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Except that this '20%' is around 1000C to go from 5000C to 6000C. And that's pretty significant.
I'd say "far hotter" is a reasonable thing here.
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To me, I would be expecting a significant fraction of an order of magnitude. Of course 1,000 degrees is a lot compared to temperatures that matter to our everyday lives.
Plus or minus 500C (Score:2)
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Well, also going from roughly 80 degrees to roughly 100 (celsius) is a quite significant difference.
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In the same way, 1.1 million years estimate is only a little off from 1.0 million years in terms of date estimation, even though 100,000 seems like a "really, really big number" (tm).
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Not all "20%"'s are created equal. For instance, if the temperature outside increases from 5C to 6C, you probably don't even notice. If it goes from 35C to 42C, you probably are rather unhappy about that.
Re:Far hotter? (Score:5, Informative)
Well, since it's Celsius and not Kelvin, it's not a 20% absolute increase. At thousands of degrees, the difference between Celsius and Kelvin is more of a rounding error so I didn't mention it.
5 to 6 degrees would be a 1/278th increase.
5C to 6C is not +20% temperature (Score:4, Informative)
5C to 6C is less than a 1% increase in temperature.
(Celsius isn't a ratio scale where 0 of the quantity measured is 0 on the scale; Kelvin is -- 5C to 6C is 278K to 279K; at the range of 5000C to 6000C, the difference between C and K is small and doesn't effect ratios much, but at 5-6C that's not true.)
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Your body temperature can not increase by 20% you will die roughly at a 18% increase.
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Semantics, yes, but you can't grade "hotness" on either the Fahrenheit or Celsius scales by a percentage; otherwise 1 degree is infinitely "hotter" than 0 degrees!
To be fair, in Kelvin this is a 19% increase, so the semantic difference seems irrelevant. To put it in perspective, though, a 20% increase from room temperature (25 C or 298 K) would be 85 C (358 K); I'm pretty sure you'd agree that's "far" hotter!
Anthropic units (Score:2)
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If we're talking in percentages where's the zero point at?
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0 Kelvin. The difference between Celsius and Kelvin at temperatures this high up are fairly low, so I didn't mention it.
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That means (Score:2)
Re:That means (Score:5, Funny)
Just book a cruise on Carnival Cruise Lines. They offer cruises to Hell.
hardly "much hotter" (Score:3, Informative)
this new model suggests 6000 +/- 500 degrees C, the old model was 6000 +/- 1000 degrees to some sources, but up to 9000 degrees by others
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,262762,00.html [foxnews.com]
the point is 6000 degrees C has long, long been in the possible range, and the earth's core may well be much hotter
Re:hardly "much hotter" (Score:4, Informative)
Come on mods, RTFLAs (L=linked)
only 1800F degrees (Score:5, Funny)
Big deal. That's like the difference between December and July in the Midwest.
Goodness gracious ... (Score:2)
Great balls of fire.
Seriously, though. Science is awesome.
So is Gwyneth Paltrow (Score:2)
I mean People Magazine crowned her "World's Most Beautiful Woman", so she is far hotter than many people thought.
Re:So is Gwyneth Paltrow (Score:5, Funny)
That's because everybody tends to use the metric Helen (1k ship launching capability) instead of the more accurate Troy Helen (1.186k ships)...
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http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/millihelen [wiktionary.org]
millihelen (plural millihelens)
(informal) A unit of measure of pulchritude, corresponding to the amount of beauty required to launch one ship. [quotations ]
That is good ROFL
this wouldn't be the first time (Score:2)
this phrase was used by geologist wearing beer goggles...
Diamond Anvil Cell != Earth Core (Score:2)
I'm no expert on these things, but e
Iron Diamond? (Score:2)
I don't know - I'm just putting it out there and it's probably already been thought of,
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The number of viable reasons to answer that question "No" is simply so staggering, I cannot imagine the question arising in the mind of someone whose idea of fashion isn't "straight jacket."
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A simple yes would suffice.
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The surface of the sun is practically ice-cold compared to its own core.
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Given the orders of magnitude and error bars involved and that the temperature at the core is all theory in the first place, ice-cold is far to precise.
Just use absolute-zero cold.
The temperature of the surface of the sun is smaller than the error bounds on our theories about the the temperature of the core. Thus if you are comparing them you might as well treat the surface temp as 0 and save a subtraction...
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Then use 1 and save a division.
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The surface of the sun is practically ice-cold compared to its own core.
Question: Where is the surface of the sun? (or the surface of any gaseous body for that matter).
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At a radius where the density crosses a particular threshold. You are aware that a body that big is held together by gravity, right?
For the sun, it doesn't matter - all around cold on both sides of the threshold compared to the core.
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At least it is an educated guess.
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Still this does not address the number one problem with US education. The parents or rather the lack of parenting.
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Why we're funding people to have kids that they don't bother to raise is an important issue.
Because if the state finances it and raises the kids in lieu of parenting, then the state can tell them exactly how to vote.
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But most people who vote for politicians and who support such policies do not do so for that reason - at least not consciously. They want to be "kind" and "compassionate" and don't see another way that isn't "mean-spirited."
I'm at a loss for how to explain how counter-productive their policies are.
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Don't you mean "the number one problem in US education, parents who have to both work 12 hours a day leaving them no time to raise their children"?. Personally I've only been a successful parent due to having an order of magnitude cheaper housing compared to the going rate, thank deity.
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Actually it is possible to get a great education in the US. Most don't because the system is set up to encourage you to just do enough to get by. If, however, you are highly motivated and or have parents that encourage and demand that you strive for the best then you can go far indeed. The problem is that the average are left in the dirt.
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So you want to journey to the center of the earth? Be my guest. And watch out for pterodactyls.
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We've not even been to the deepest depths of the ocean. . . .
Actually, we have [wikipedia.org].
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In a word, geology. Actually worth learning something about before claiming it's all BS.
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For all we know Earth is dirt all the way down
Are you sure it's dirt and not turtles?
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Only if the turtles are Gamera's.
That would explain the heat too.
That turtle must eat a lot of Sriracha.
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Excepting the troll's teeth.
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None.
Around half of the Earth's internal energy is from radiogenic sources (potassium, uranium and thorium decaying in the interior) and about half is the heat of accretion (landing comets and asteroids on the surface supplies a lot of energy). A relatively small (20%) change in estimated internal temperature doesn't affect the estimate of the age of the Earth, because the age of the Earth is not estimated from it's tempera