The core of the Earth. Brief history of education

2024 Author: Henry Conors | [email protected]. Last modified: 2024-02-12 02:44

Man's ideas about the world began to develop approximately from the middle of the 14th century. Later, René Descartes, the great mathematician, suggested that our planet formed from a lump of mass that was like a bright sun at first, but then cooled down. In this regard, the “core of the Earth” is hidden in the bowels. However, it was not possible to verify this assumption at that time.

Subsequently, Newton established, and the French expedition of scientists confirmed that the planet is somewhat flattened at the poles. It follows from this that the Earth is not a sphere of regular shape. Buffon (French naturalist), supporting this statement, suggested that this is possible if the bowels of the planet have a molten structure. Buffon in 1776 suggested that in ancient times there was a collision of the Sun and a certain comet. This comet “knocked out a certain mass of matter from the star. This mass, gradually cooling down, became the Earth.

Buffon's hypothesis began to be tested by physicists. According to thermodynamic laws, no process can continue indefinitely: from the moment its energy is exhausted, it will stop. In the 19th centurysome calculations have been made. The mathematician and physicist from England, Lord Kelvin, found that in order to cool down, lose a large amount of energy and cease to be a molten mass, becoming what it is now, it takes about one hundred million years. Geologists, in turn, pointed out that the age of the rocks is much older. In addition, the phenomenon of radioactivity was already discovered in the 19th century. Thus, it became clear that many hundreds of millions of years are needed for the decay of elements.

Until recently, it was believed that the core of the Earth is an absolutely smooth ball of regular shape (like a cannonball). In the eighties, the so-called seismic tomography was invented. With its help, scientists have found that the core of the Earth has its own relief. The thickness of the surface, as it turned out, is different. In some sections it is one hundred and fifty kilometers, while in others it reaches three hundred and fifty.

According to information obtained with the help of seismic waves, liquid (molten) is the outer core of the Earth (a layer with an uneven relief). The inner part is a "firmament", because it is under the pressure of the entire planet. The theoretically calculated pressure of the outer part is about 1.3 million atmospheres. In the center, the pressure rises to three million atmospheres. The temperature of the Earth's core is about 10,000 degrees. The weight of a cubic meter of matter from the bowels of the planet is about twelve to thirteen tons.

Betweenthe sizes of the parts that include the core of the Earth, there is a certain ratio. The inner part makes up about 1.7% of the mass of the planet. The outer part is about thirty percent. The material that makes up most of it is obviously diluted with something relatively light, most likely sulfur. A number of experts suggest that this element is about fourteen percent.