Launched in 2013, the European Space Agency’s (ESA) Swarm mission, consisting of three satellites, has provided a decade of invaluable data on Earth’s magnetic field and core dynamics. This data has enabled significant advances in understanding the mechanisms behind the magnetic field’s slow changes, as detailed in a recent ESA-funded project report.
Researchers from China have confirmed an 8.5-year Inner Core Wobble (ICW) in Earth’s polar motion and length-of-day variations, revealing a static tilt of about 0.17 degrees between the inner core and mantle, challenging long-standing assumptions about Earth’s internal dynamics.
An unprecedented discovery of elevated helium-3 to helium-4 ratios in ancient lava flows on Baffin Island, Canada, suggests that these rare isotopes may be leaking from Earth’s core. Published on October 18, 2023, the groundbreaking study led by geochemist Forrest Horton of the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution opens new avenues for understanding Earth’s deepest regions and its formative history.
According to a new study published in the journal Nature Geoscience, the inner core of the Earth may have stopped rotating faster than the rest of the planet around 2009 and then turned in an opposite direction.
Geophysicists from the University of Maryland made the first analysis of seismic echoes from hundreds of earthquakes at once, unveiling more widespread, heterogenous structures at the core-mantle boundary than previously known. Past studies were limited to single…
A new study published in Earth and Planetary Science letters supports the concept that the Earth's early magnetic field was generated by its mantle, not its core. A new study conducted by researchers Dave Stegman, Leah Ziegler, and Nicolas Blanc provided more…
Scientists at the Earth-Life Science Institute at the Tokyo Institute of Technology reported in Nature yesterday their unexpected discoveries about the Earth's core. The findings include insights into the source of energy driving the Earth's magnetic field,…
Scientists using data obtained by ESA's Swarm constellation of satellites have discovered a jet stream in the liquid iron part of Earth’s core 3 000 km (1 864 miles) beneath the surface. In addition, Swarm satellite data show that this jet stream is…
An international team of scientists has concluded the oxygen is more abundant in the core of the Earth than previously thought, by considering the combined geophysical and geochemical signatures of the planet. Results were published in the online September 21 – 25, 2015
Seismic waves are helping scientists to plumb the world’s deepest mystery: the planet’s inner core.Thanks to a novel application of earthquake-reading technology, a research team at the University of Illinois and colleagues at Nanjing University in China hav
