• Question: why did the core get so hot?

    Asked by FEZZA to Scott on 10 Mar 2016.
    • Photo: Scott Lawrie

      Scott Lawrie answered on 10 Mar 2016:

      Hi Fezza,

      Do you mean the Earth’s core? Well when stars and planets are made, you have a cloud of gas that collapses into the middle because of gravity. When gravity squashes things together they get hot. The Sun is big enough and gravity strong enough that it got REALLY hot in the middle and nuclear fusion could start. That’s what keeps the Sun burning. The Earth isn’t big enough to do that, but it did stay pretty hot in the middle – hot enough to melt rock into lava!

      I hope that answers your question 🙂

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