What implications does the change of direction of the Earth's core have?;
What consequences does this fact have for the planet?
How did the movement of all the terrestrial layers work until now?;
Has this ever happened before or is it an unusual event?
In the video that accompanies this article, the director of the Geology Department of the University of Salamanca, Puy Ayarza, tries to solve the unknowns that the reader may have after learning that the Earth's core has slowed down.
The interior of the Earth contains a sphere, located 5,000 kilometers deep, and composed almost entirely of iron.
The movement of this has slowed down and it is possible that it is rotating in the opposite direction to the planet, according to a study published this Monday in
Nature Geoscience
.
This brake can shorten the days by a few fractions of a second and influence the weather and the tides.
Two researchers, Yi Yang and Xiaodong Song, from Peking University's Institute of Theoretical and Applied Geophysics in China, have tried to solve the puzzles raised by this discovery.
In this case, they have focused on the inner sphere, which contains this other, smaller sphere within that is stopping.
The latest research shows that the free rotation of this gigantic orb causes a magnetic field to be generated on Earth, which protects it from space radiation and allows life to exist on the globe.
Inside the nucleus is a solid sphere with a radius of about 1,200 kilometers that revolves between molten iron and other metals.
The Earth's mantle extends around this nucleus, with a thickness of almost 3,000 kilometers, and above it, the outer crust, with a mere 40 kilometers of average thickness.
The heat inside the core is similar to that on the surface of the Sun.