The core of the Earth. Brief history of education

Man's ideas about the surrounding world began to develop around the middle of the 14th century. Later Rene Descartes, a great mathematician, suggested that our planet was formed from a mass lump that was like a bright sun first, but then cooled. In connection with this, the "core of the Earth" is hidden in the bowels. However, it was not possible to verify this assumption at that time.

Subsequently, Newton established, and the French expedition of scientists confirmed that the planet is somewhat flattened at the poles. From this it follows that the Earth is not a ball of the right form. Buffon (French naturalist), supporting this assertion, suggested that this is possible if the bowels of the planet have a molten structure. Buffon in 1776 th year suggested that in ancient times there was a clash of the Sun and a certain comet. This comet "knocked out of the luminary a certain mass of matter. This mass, gradually cooling down, became the Earth.

The Buffon hypothesis was begun to be checked by physicists. According to thermodynamic laws, no process can continue indefinitely: from the moment when its energy is exhausted, it will cease. In the 19th century, certain calculations were made. A mathematician and physicist from England, Lord Kelvin, has established that in order to cool down, lose a large amount of energy and cease to be a molten mass, becoming as it is now, it takes about a hundred million years. Geologists, in turn, pointed out that the age of the rocks is much larger. In addition, in the 19 th century, the phenomenon of radioactivity was already discovered. So, it became clear that many hundreds of millions of years are needed to break down the elements.

Until recently, it was believed that the core of the Earth is an absolutely smooth ball of regular shape (like a cannonball). In the eighties, the so-called seismic tomography was invented. With its help, scientists have found out that the core of the Earth has its own relief. The thickness of the surface, as it turned out, is different. In some areas it is one hundred and fifty kilometers, and on others it reaches three hundred and fifty kilometers.

According to the information obtained with the help of seismic waves, the liquid (molten) is the outer core of the Earth (a layer with uneven relief). The inner part is a "firmament", because it experiences the pressure of the whole planet. The theoretical pressure of the outer part is about 1.3 million atmospheres. At the center, the pressure rises to three million atmospheres. The core temperature of the Earth is about 10 000 degrees. The weight of a cubic meter of matter from the depths of the planet is about twelve to thirteen tons.

Between the dimensions of the parts that includes the core of the Earth, there is a certain relationship. The inner part is about 1.7% of the planet's mass. The outer part is about thirty percent. The material of which the greater part consists is obviously diluted with something comparatively easy, most likely gray. A number of specialists suggest that this element is about fourteen percent.