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Asked by Nicolaslamelas17 to Stuart, Richard on 10 Mar 2016.
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Richard Friend answered on 10 Mar 2016:
Not a lot! The core of the earth is 6000 degrees Celsius, as hot as the surface of the sun. An extra 0.5% wouldn’t change much. The earth would have been hotter millions of years ago, after it was formed, and it’s been cooling ever since. Eventually it will cool completely and will be solid, like the moon. That’ll take a while though!
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Stuart Atkinson answered on 10 Mar 2016:
As Richard says, it wouldn’t make much of a difference. Now if you meant on the surface of the Earth, that would be a very different story…
The Earth’s core contains a lot of molten iron, and it’s at the core because it’s a relatively heavy element, and quite abundant in the Earth. Iron is the final product of stars cooking the chemical elements, which is why there’s a lot of it about. Much of the Earth’s internal heat comes from radioactive decay of very heavy elements. If the Earth had no internal radioactivity the core would have cooled long ago (remember the Earth is about 4.6 billion years old!)
It is the Earth’s molten iron core that crates the planet’s magnetic field, and that’s why you can use a compass to find north!
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