Hasta La Gadget!

A recent X-ray analysis of molten iron has uncovered that the Earth’s inner core is actually a lot hotter than we all thought previously. According to a team scientists from French research agency CEA, French National Center for Scientific Research CNRS, and the European Synchrotron Radiation Facility ESRF, the inner core of the Earth is said to be 6,000 degrees Celsius, or 10,800 degrees Fahrenheit.

This means that the inner core of the planet that we live on is as hot as the surface of the Sun. The Earth’s core is made of solid, crystalline iron that’s surrounded by liquid. This is formed due to the tremendous amount of pressure buildup. However, recent experiments have shown that this inner structure is actually formed at much higher temperatures.

Previous estimates, which took place in the 90s, were achieved by measuring iron’s melting curves, and this placed the core temperature at 5,000 degrees Celsius. However, this new technique utilizes fast X-ray diffraction, and it allows researchers to examine tiny samples of iron at immense pressures to get a better sense of how small iron crystals form and melt.

However, the real challenge was to replicate that crazy amounts of pressure that’s experienced in the Earth’s inner core, which are obviously hard to replicate on the Earth’s surface. However, scientists were able to get close, using high-powered lasers. The iron samples were placed under high pressure from two diamonds squeezing the iron together, and then they were blasted by lasers, which turned the iron into liquid form, where scientists then observed the diffraction period to come up with a final number.

[via BBC News]

Earth’s core as hot as the Sun, claim scientists is written by Craig Lloyd & originally posted on SlashGear.
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This is actually a pretty great thought experiment. At first it might seem kind of pointless to talk about what would happen if the sun vanished, but it doesn’t actually result in the immediate destruction of everything. Which is weird. Vsauce walks through a pretty nuanced description of how earth’s natural systems would slowly fail, but over weeks and even years, not seconds. The cold would get us in the end, but extremophiles that live in deep sea volcanoes and thermal vents could survive for billions of years. If you’re not heliocentric and human-centric things don’t look so bleak. [Vsauce] More »

On Earth, being able to view a solar eclipse is a very rare occurrence. In space, it’s not so rare to witness this event. Recently, NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory caught a glimpse of two incredible eclipses in only a seven hour period. The first image below is one that SDO snapped of the Sun being blocked by the Earth.

The second image shows a much more defined photograph of the Sun that was taken a few hours later as the Moon moved in front of the SDO’s view of the sun. The reason the outline of the Moon is so much more crisp and clear is because it has no atmosphere. The SDO is able to see through some of the Earth’s atmosphere giving the Earth a jagged appearing edge during its eclipse.

This month marks the spacecraft’s entry into its biannual eclipse season. This season lasts three weeks, and during that time the Earth blocks the Solar Dynamics Observatory for a period of time each day. The Earth blocked the spacecraft’s view the Sun from about 10:15 PM to 11:45 PM this past Sunday night.

[via DailyMail]

“On July 19, 2012, the Sun produced a medium-size solar flare,” NASA says on this new video captured by its Solar Dynamics Observatory, “what occurred with the flare was amazing.” It’s true. It’s amazing. Fire started to fall down like rain—a hell waterfall many times the size of planet Earth. You have to watch this uncanny document for yourself. More »

NASA has published this colorful collage that shows the Sun in every possible way using all the instruments from the Solar Dynamics Observatory. Scientists use these views to study different aspects of the Sun’s structure and behavior: More »