Earth’s core is cooling rapidly, study finds. Is our planet becoming “inactive”?| Breaking News Updates

The Earth’s interior is cooling faster than we previously estimated, according to a recent study, raising questions about how long people will live on the planet.

There is no specific timeline on the cooling process, which could eventually make Earth solid, similar to Mars. But the results of a new study, published in the peer-reviewed journal Earth and Planetary Science Letters, focus on how quickly the core can cool by studying bridgmanite, a heat-conducting mineral found commonly at the boundary between the Earth’s core and mantle.

“Our results could give us a new perspective on the evolution of the Earth’s dynamics,” said Motohiko Murakami, a professor at ETH Zurich, lead author of the study, in a press release. “They suggest that Earth, like the other rocky planets Mercury and Mars, is cooling and becoming inactive much faster than expected.”

While the process may be moving faster than previously thought, it’s a timeline that “should be hundreds of millions if not billions of years away,” Murakami told USA TODAY.

The boundary between the Earth’s outer core and mantle is where the planet’s internal thermal interaction exists. The science team studied the amount of conductive bridgmanite from the Earth’s core and found that a higher heat flux came from the core into the mantle, dissipating global heat and cooling much faster than previously thought. initially.

“This measurement system allowed us to show that the thermal conductivity of bridgmanite is about 1.5 times higher than expected,” Murakami said in the press release. “We still don’t know enough about these kinds of events to determine their timing.”

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Earth’s interior is cooling faster than expected, affecting habitability