• Question: what do you think is at the centre of the Earth?

    Asked by no1prosecutorye to Angus, Christian, Hannah, Laura, Simon on 14 Jun 2013.
    • Photo: Simon Holyoake

      Simon Holyoake answered on 14 Jun 2013:

      I think there is a core of mostly solid Iron and Nickel at a temperature approximately the same as the surface of the sun (~5700 celsius) we are reasonably sure of this from various observations made by earth scientists studying how the pressure waves from earthquakes travel through the planet

    • Photo: Christian Maerz

      Christian Maerz answered on 15 Jun 2013:

      Simon is absolutely right about what is at the centre of the Earth, at least according to what scientists have hypothesised. It’s pretty amazing we actually know this, as no human being has ever been able to even drill through the Earth’s crust – if the Earth was an apple, the crust would only be as thin as the apple’s peel! And we can still tell what is going on much much further down – thanks to geophysics!

    • Photo: Hannah Bentham

      Hannah Bentham answered on 16 Jun 2013:

      Most certainly the centre of the Earth is a solid spherical inner core made up of iron (mixed with a few other elements).

      The core is such a interesting part of the Earth to study. We are finding more things about it all the time, mainly by studying earthquake energy (seismology). One of the most recent claims is that the inner core is moving sideways! Well, actually it’s growing on one side and is eroding on the other. Pretty cool to thing about things like that happening thousands of kilometers beneath our feet.

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