Earth's core is cooling faster. How much longer can we inhabit it?

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The Earth's core is cooling faster than previously thought, which may hasten the time when the planet is no longer habitable, which will be millions to billions of years from now.

The interior of the Earth has been gradually cooling since it was created about 4.5 billion years ago.

It has been a pattern that has benefited the emergence of life in what has now become a green paradise, where humans have thrived for the last 200,000 years.

"This perspective raises the question of how fast the Earth has been losing heat throughout its history, which directly relates to the fundamental question of how much longer the Earth will remain dynamically active," the authors wrote in the paper published in the scientific journal

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However, there is still ongoing research to determine how fast this process has been happening.

A group of scientists has been studying bridgmanite, an abundant heat-conducting mineral found between the Earth's core and mantle.

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They found that it is 1.5 times more conductive than previously believed,

“We found that the net thermal conductivity at the core-mantle boundary becomes 1.5 times higher than the conventionally assumed value, supporting a higher heat flux from the core and thus more vigorous mantle convection. than expected," the researchers said.

"The results suggest that the mantle cools more efficiently, which would ultimately weaken many mantle convection-driven tectonic activities more rapidly than expected from thermal conduction behavior," they added.

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As the planet cools, it will lose its magnetic field, which protects Earth from harmful cosmic radiation.

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The researchers did not risk estimating how many more years the Earth will be able to support life.

A 2013 projection by Andrew Rushby of the University of East Anglia in the UK estimated that

, assuming there is no nuclear holocaust, deadly asteroid or other unforeseen disaster.