The center of the earth may be made of crystals
"Scientists believe the solid inner core is made of an iron-nickel alloy.
To understand what form it might take under the extreme
conditions at the centre of the Earth, Professor Kei Hirose set himself a
seemingly impossible challenge: recreate the conditions of the core in
his lab at the SPring-8 synchrotron near Osaka, Japan. After 10 years
of trying, he has finally succeeded.
He has created an incredibly powerful vice using the tips of two
diamonds. Between them he has pressurised a sample of iron-nickel to
three million times atmospheric pressure and heated the sample to about
4,500C.
Under these extraordinary conditions, the crystal structure
of iron-nickel alloy changed and the crystals rapidly grew in size. "We may have very big crystals at the centre of the Earth, maybe up to 10km," says Hirose. These crystals would all align "like a forest", says Hirose, pointing at the poles."
Sure, like interior of a thunder egg!
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