Earth’s iron core is not just a solid mass.

According to a new “holy grail” scientific discovery, the blazing hot ball of metal at Earth’s core is actually more active than one might think. In fact, this centra planet could host a molecular dinner party.

Using machine learning and a supercomputer, physicists from the University of Texas at Austin and China’s Sichuan and Nanjing Universities have reported the possibility of iron atoms moving in the Earth’s core, some of the denser inner core. can explain the “soft” physical structure of Properties

For context: Earth’s core is a solid metallic inner core surrounded by a liquid metallic outer core. It is about 750 miles thick and reaches a temperature of 9,800 degrees Fahrenheit (or about 5,400 degrees Celsius). The movement of atoms in the liquid outer core creates Earth’s magnetic field and the planet’s vast habitability. But while our planet’s core has long been thought to be a solid iron core, recent research has theorized that part of the dense inner core may actually be liquid.

The new study suggests that the core’s iron atoms move into new positions “like people changing seats at a dinner table,” without disturbing the underlying metallic structure of the iron and enabling the core to deteriorate further. The concept is known as “collective action”.

“Seismologists have found that the core of the Earth, called the inner core, is surprisingly soft, like butter is soft in your kitchen,” explained Sichuan University professor Yuzhen Zhang. “The big discovery we made is that solid iron softens surprisingly deep in the Earth because its atoms can move much more than we thought. This increased movement makes the inner core less rigid. , makes it weak against shear forces.

Zhang and his fellow researchers used a small computer model of Earth’s inner core to predict the properties and motions of the core’s iron atoms. Using data collected from high-pressure-temperature laboratory experiments designed to simulate conditions in the Earth’s interior, the results were then compared to earthquakes in the Earth’s inner core and laboratory shock wave experiments. Conducted wave studies that tested the expected collective motion of iron atoms. At extreme pressures and temperatures.

“This discovery shows that the same physics in mass motion is at work in the interiors of other planets, such as Mars and exoplanetary interiors,” Jung Fu Lin, a professor at the University of Texas Jackson School of Geosciences, said in an interview with Newsweek. Also found.”

Science’s obsession with the inaccessible inner core — which still holds heat from Earth’s formation 4.5 billion years ago — has led to predictive models and research to propose various explanations for its motion, structure and shape. as well as an abundance of misleading information.

But, even as science comes closer to explaining the intricacies of our planet and its dancing atoms, Earth’s rising layers have yet to be fully undone.