Earth’s Inner Core Has Stopped Spinning

A recent study examined seismic waves from earthquakes that happened again and again over the previous six decades and was issued in the journal Nature Geoscience. According to research, the solid inner core of the earth which is a hot iron ball has interrupted its revolution and begun to spin in the other way.

An AFP report stated that the “planet within the globe” may spin independently because it floats in the liquid metal outer core, which is located approximately 5,000 kilometers (3,100 miles) below the surface of the earth on which we live. Scientists have disagreed over the precise mechanism by which the inner core rotates, and the most recent research is likely to raise new questions.

The minor changes in seismic waves that are produced by earthquakes or occasionally nuclear explosions as they pass through the Earth’s core are what allow us to determine what little information we know about the inner core.

A recent study examined seismic waves from recurrent earthquakes over the previous 60 years to follow the inner core’s movements. The inner core’s rotation “came to a near halt in 2009 and then turned in an opposite direction,” according to the study’s authors, Xiaodong Song and Yi Yang of China’s Peking University.

“We believe the inner core spins back and forth, like a swing, relative to the Earth’s surface,” they told AFP.

“One cycle of the swing is nearly seven decades,” they continued, implying that it switches direction roughly every 35 years. They claimed it had previously reversed course in the early 1970s and anticipated the next pivot would be in the mid-2040s. According to the researchers, this rotation closely corresponds to fluctuations in the “length of day” – minor variations in the exact time it takes the earth to circle on its axis.

So yet, there is little evidence that what the inner core accomplishes has a significant impact on surface inhabitants. However, the researchers stated that they believe physical links exist between all of Earth’s layers, from the inner core to the surface.

“We hope that our work will inspire other researchers to develop and test models that treat the entire Earth as an integrated dynamic system,” they stated.

“This is a very rigorous study by outstanding scientists who have gathered a lot of data,” said John Vidale, a seismologist at the University of Southern California. “However, none of the models explain all of the data particularly well in my perspective,” he said.

Last year, Vidale presented studies indicating that the inner core oscillates faster, changing direction every six years. Seismic waves from two nuclear explosions in the late 1960s and early 1970s were used in his research. That timeframe is approximately the point when Monday’s research reveals the inner core last shifted direction — which Vidale called “sort of a coincidence. 

Another possibility, according to Vidale, is that the inner core only moved significantly between 2001 and 2013 and remained stationary. Therefore, Hrvoje Tkalcic, an Australian National University geophysicist, published data indicating that the inner core’s cycle occurs every 20 to 30 years rather than the 70 years predicted in the current study. 

The subject will remain contentious as he collates seismologists into doctors who analyze patients’ interior organs with inadequate or limited equipment.

Without a CT scan, “our vision of the inside Earth remains fuzzy,” he said, forecasting additional surprises. It may include more information on the hypothesis that the inner core contains another iron ball, similar to a Russian doll.

“Something’s going on, and I think we’re going to figure it out,” Vidale explained.

“However, it could take a decade.”

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