A study of the Earth’s core published last week in the journal Nature is challenging what scientists have thought about the structure of the planet.
The new study showed that Earth’s inner core is in a “superionic state,” made of carbon, hydrogen and oxygen, which, when combined and subjected to pressure and temperature, create a substance that is between a solid and a liquid.
According to the study, computer simulations show that while the iron in the core stays as a solid, lighter elements around it flow like a liquid.
Yu He, a physicist at the Chinese Academy of Sciences and lead author of the study, said the calculations challenged what researchers previously understood about the inner core.
“It is quite abnormal,” He said of the substance.
Researchers studied earthquake data and used the quantum mechanics theory, which helps explain how atoms and particles behave at the microscopic level, to create simulations of the pressure and temperatures found in the planet’s inner core.
Those simulations helped researchers show how alloys are transformed into the “superionic” state.
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