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Earth's inner core may have started spinning other way: study
Earth's inner core, a hot iron ball the size of Pluto, has stopped spinning in the same direction as the rest of the planet and might even be rotating the other way, research suggested on Monday.
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In this image released by the US Geological Survey, molten bombs are thrown into the air by the lava fountains at fissure 3 on the Northeast Rift Zone of Mauna Loa, Hawaii, on December 2, 2022. Fountains of lava and rivers of molten rock were spewing from the world's biggest volcano, as the first eruption there in almost four decades showed no signs of abating.
(AFP/D. Downs)
Far below our feet, a giant may have started moving against us.
Earth's inner core, a hot iron ball the size of Pluto, has stopped spinning in the same direction as the rest of the planet and might even be rotating the other way, research suggested on Monday.
Roughly 5,000 kilometres (3,100 miles) below the surface we live on, this "planet within the planet" can spin independently because it floats in the liquid metal outer core.
Exactly how the inner core rotates has been a matter of debate between scientists -- and the latest research is expected to prove controversial.
What little we know about the inner core comes from measuring the tiny differences in seismic waves -- created by earthquakes or sometimes nuclear explosions -- as they pass through the middle of the Earth.
Seeking to track the inner core's movements, new research published in the journal Nature Geoscience analysed seismic waves from repeating earthquakes over the last six decades.
The study's authors, Xiaodong Song and Yi Yang of China's Peking University, said they found that the inner core's rotation "came to near halt around 2009 and then turned in an opposite direction".
