The earth has a hot core, usually we call it the core, in the past days, people have long found that soon after the formation of the earth, the thermal energy of the core has been lost, and the decay of radioactive elements in the core is not enough to fully compensate for this loss, so the core is actually in a state of constant cooling, but it is generally believed that the core of the earth cools very slowly, and it takes billions of years or more to cool completely.
However, a team of researchers from the Zurich University of Technology has taken a different view, showing that the Earth's core is cooling faster than previously predicted, because the Earth's core is actually cooling much faster than previously predicted. Let's take a look at what this is all about.
Past studies have shown that a silicate perovskite is widely present in the lower mantle, which is called "bridgmanite", and that "bridgmanite" dominates the heat transfer process between the core and the lower mantle.
We know that there is a high-temperature and high-pressure environment between the Earth's core and the lower mantle, and in fact, the main purpose of this research is to create the same environment in the laboratory, and then measure the thermal conductivity of "Brinellite" in this environment.
This is easier said than done, and there are a number of technical challenges, but the team managed to do it by developing a complex measurement system that showed that the "Brinellan" is about 1.5 times more efficient than previously estimated in the same high-temperature and high-pressure environment as the core and the lower mantle junction.
This means that the heat flow from the Earth's core to the lower mantle is stronger than previously estimated, and that stronger heat flow increases convection across the mantle, which in turn accelerates the cooling rate of the Earth's core, the researchers said.
In addition to this, the researchers also found that when the temperature drops to a certain level, "Brinellite" transforms into a post-perovskite phase mineral, and because this mineral conducts heat more efficiently than Brinellanite, the cooling rate of the Earth's core accelerates further when they begin to emerge and gradually dominate at the junction of the core and lower mantle. So, what happens once the Earth's core is completely cooled? What will humanity go through? We'll see.
We know that the Earth has a planetary magnetic field, and the hot core of the Earth is the key factor in the existence of the Earth's magnetic field, so it can be seen that if the Earth's core is completely cooled, the Earth will also lose its magnetic field.
There is a common saying that if the earth has no magnetic field, the solar wind and various cosmic rays will "drive straight in", which will cause a large number of extinctions of life on the earth, and over time, even the earth's atmosphere may be stripped of a large part by the solar wind, directly making the earth "Martian".
However, not everyone agrees with this statement, and some people have questioned that the known geological record shows that there have been as many as tens of thousands of geomagnetic reversal events in the history of the Earth, and these reversal events have caused a temporary weakening of the Earth's magnetic field, and even some period about 565 million years ago, the strength of the Earth's magnetic field weakened to near zero, but to date, we have not found any evidence that these geomagnetic reversal events caused large-scale extinction events on Earth.
As for the fact that the Earth's atmosphere will be stripped away by the solar wind, it is likely not to happen, because Venus, which is "next door" to the Earth, does not have a planetary magnetic field, and its atmosphere is still good.
In other words, there is still some controversy about how protective the Earth's magnetic field is. But even if you don't take into account this reason, in the process of the complete cooling of the earth's core, all life on the earth, including humans, will become more and more difficult, and in the end, the earth will still become a barren planet, why? because the oceans on the earth will disappear.
If the earth's core is completely cooled, then the "orogenic movement" and "land-building movement" will also be completely stopped, in this case, weathering and seawater erosion will not be long before the mountains on the earth's surface will be "flattened", and the trenches in the depths of the ocean will also be "filled", and the result is that the depth of the earth's oceans will continue to decrease, and the area will continue to expand.
(↑ Approximate ratio of the water on the earth's surface to the whole earth)
But this is just the beginning, you must know that the vast majority of the water on the earth is distributed in the oceans on the surface of the earth, and compared with the diameter of the earth, the thickness of the ocean can be said to be not worth mentioning, the reason for this is that there is an important reason: the high temperature inside the earth will vaporize the water, and then let it return to the surface of the earth, at the same time, the high temperature environment inside the earth will also prevent water molecules from combining with rocks in the form of "crystalline water".
Therefore, it can be said that if the earth's core is completely cooled, the water on the surface of the earth will continue to seep into the interior of the earth, and "never look back", and due to the reason of thermal expansion and contraction, there will be more gaps in the lithosphere of the earth's crust, which will play a role in promoting this process, and the result is that the earth's sea level will continue to fall until it completely disappears, and the earth will become barren at that time, which is not suitable for human life at all.
As you can see, this is a sad ending, but we don't need to worry too much about it, because even if the cooling rate of the Earth's core is accelerating compared to previous predictions, and it will take at least hundreds of millions of years for the Earth's core to cool, we can be optimistic that before the Earth's core is completely cooled, the level of human technology is already highly developed, and this problem can be easily solved.