{"id":4085,"date":"2024-07-08T11:04:28","date_gmt":"2024-07-08T05:34:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/?p=4085"},"modified":"2025-03-26T21:31:37","modified_gmt":"2025-03-26T16:01:37","slug":"what-is-the-inner-core-of-the-earth","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/what-is-the-inner-core-of-the-earth\/","title":{"rendered":"What is the Inner Core of the Earth?"},"content":{"rendered":"<h2>About Earth\u2019s Inner Core:<\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li>It is the <strong>innermost part<\/strong> of Earth.<\/li>\n<li>It is located at the <strong>Earth&#8217;s center<\/strong>, approximately <strong>5,150 kilometers<\/strong> (3,219 miles) <strong>beneath<\/strong> the Earth&#8217;s surface.<\/li>\n<li>It is a <strong>solid metallic ball <\/strong>primarily composed of<strong> iron and nickel.<\/strong><\/li>\n<li>It makes up around <strong>20 percent<\/strong> of the <strong>Earth\u2019s mass.<\/strong><\/li>\n<li>It has a <strong>radius<\/strong> of about 759 miles <strong>(1,221 kilometers<\/strong>).<\/li>\n<li>It is <strong>extremely hot,with temperatures r<\/strong>anging from <strong>7200\u20139000\u2109 (4000\u20135000\u2103).<\/strong>\n<ul>\n<li>The primary <strong>contributors to<\/strong> the inner core&#8217;s <strong>heat are<\/strong> the d<strong>ecay of radioactive elements<\/strong> such as uranium, thorium, and potassium in Earth&#8217;s crust and mantle<strong>, residual heat from planetary formation<\/strong>, and <strong>heat emitted by<\/strong> the <strong>solidification of the outer core.<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li>It is <strong>under intense pressure<\/strong> of about 3.6 million atmospheres (atm), <strong>which keeps it solid<\/strong> despite high temperatures.<\/li>\n<li>It is <strong>surrounded by<\/strong> the <strong>outer core<\/strong>\u2014a superhot <strong>layer of molten metals<\/strong> similar to those in the inner core\u2014which is <strong>surrounded by<\/strong> a more solid sea of molten rock, known as the <strong>mantle<\/strong>, <strong>and the crust.\u00a0<\/strong><\/li>\n<li>The <strong>boundary between<\/strong> the <strong>inner and outer cores<\/strong> is called the <strong>Lehman Seismic Discontinuity.<\/strong><\/li>\n<li>The inner core <strong>generates its own magnetic field<\/strong>.\n<ul>\n<li>Despite its small volume (less than 1% of the Earth&#8217;s volume), the Earth&#8217;s inner core contains about 10% of the total magnetic field energy.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li>It plays a <strong>crucial role in outer core liquid motions and the geodynamo<\/strong>, which generates the Earth&#8217;s magnetic field.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>It <strong>rotates<\/strong> in the <strong>same direction as the surface<\/strong> of the planet but <strong>a bit faster than<\/strong> the <strong>rest of the planet.<\/strong><\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<h3>Q1: What is Mantle?<\/h3>\n<p>The mantle is the mostly solid bulk of Earth&#8217;s interior. The mantle lies between Earth&#8217;s dense, super-heated core and its thin outer layer, the crust. The mantle is about 2,900 kilometers (1,802 miles) thick, and makes up a whopping 84 percent of Earth\u2019s total volume.The rocks that make up Earth\u2019s mantle are mostly silicates\u2014a wide variety of compounds that share a silicon and oxygen structure. The temperature of the mantle varies greatly, from 1000\u00b0C (1832\u00b0F) near its boundary with the crust, to 3700\u00b0C (6692\u00b0F) near its boundary with the core.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Source: <\/strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.livemint.com\/science\/news\/earths-core-is-now-rotating-in-reverse-direction-slowing-down-what-does-it-mean-11720335849422.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Earth&#8217;s core is now rotating in reverse direction, slowing down: What does it mean?<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Earth\u2019s Inner Core is the innermost part of Earth, primarily composed of iron and nickel. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":4086,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-4085","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-upsc-prelims-current-affairs","8":"no-featured-image-padding"},"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4085","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4085"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4085\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4086"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4085"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4085"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4085"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}